What is the deal with Shrines?

Tisel

I know this is a contentions subject, but I'm fairly new to the game and I am very confused. I've read through the wiki and as many help files as I can find. I apologize if I have missed something obvious. I am in Targossas, so I recognize my information may be biased, but I am hoping this discussion will clarify matters for myself and others.

This is my understanding of how the shrine system works.

1. Shrines are set up by worshipers of each deity and represent a significant portion of a deities  power.
   
2. Erecting a shrine takes essence which comes from the killing of non-aligned, enemy denizens. A newly raised shrine must also be sanctified further after it is erected.
   
3. Each shrine exert some type control over a limited area of Sapience (4 rooms?).
   
4. Each shrine offers some worshipers  access to limited abilities, but only in the proximity of the shrine.
   
5. Each shrine allows worshipers the ability to increase the power of their deity via offerings.
   
6. *Shrines are also use to proclaim territory or as advertisement of religious influence.

A shrine can be defiled by anyone:

1. Defiling a shrine is an attack on the deity and by extension an attack on the  worshipers.  
2. Defiling requires corpse from denizens or gold.
   
3. Worshipers are allowed to defend a shrine during or after defilement. Since there may be resistance, the defiler(s) run the risk of being attacked and killed, enemied by a city, or made infamous.
   
4. Anyone can "witness" the defilement just by being present when a corpse is offered, resulting in a writ being created which can make the defiler infamous(?) and authorizes assassinations.
5. A witness cannot be attacked, unless they attack first.
6. *A shrine must be totally taken down, if possible. If a shrine is defended, it must be fully raised as soon as possible.

A shrine can be sanctified by anyone:

1. Sanctifying a shrine improves it's strength and increases the deities power.
2. Sanctifying requires corpses from denizens or gold
   
3. Enemies are allowed to attack you while you are sanctifying.
   
4. Any punishment for sanctifying an enemy shrine is character driven.
5. There seem to be no game mechanic punishments for sanctifying an enemy shrine.
6. No "witnessing" mechanics for sanctify.
7. *A shrine must be fully sanctified as soon as possible

*May not be rules, but seem to be generally accepted

My questions:

Can non-aligned characters defend a shrine without becoming infamous? That is, if a Good shrine is being defiled by Evil, can Neutral defend without risking infamy?

Can a character raise or drop a shrine by a small amount?

Are defilement and sanctifies logged anywhere? Not just notices given at the time, but actual logs that can be referred to later.

Since it is possible to gain Favour from a deity for simple offerings, is it also possible to receive Favours by defiling, sanctifying or defending?

Is there any game-mechanic reward (like Favour/Disfavour) for being in party that sanctifies, defiles or defends?

Is there any benefit to being in a room with a shrine for non-priestly characters?

Is there a limit to the number of shrines that a deity can have? If so, what determines the limit?

Are there political or geographical restrictions on shrine locations beyond the 4-room distance from another shrine?

Does number of shrines to the patron of a city have any effect on House influence?

Are there other activities that take place at a shrine besides sanctify and defilement?

Antonius

To clarify on witnessing: Defilement can only be witnessed by a member of the Order of the God the shrine belongs to, and requires them to enter a specific command within a certain period after the defilement (I think it's 15 seconds).

Can non-aligned characters defend a shrine without becoming infamous? That is, if a Good shrine is being defiled by Evil, can Neutral defend without risking infamy? 

Becoming Infamous requires a certain amount of involvement in PvP, so you could likely defend without becoming Infamous if there were only one or two people involved. However, it wouldn't be considered a legitimate roleplay reason to attack the person defiling (since you have no affiliation with the God in question) so you'd have to accept whatever consequences resulted from that.

Can a character raise or drop a shrine by a small amount? 

Yes, corpses are worth considerably less essence than it takes to completely sanctify or defile a shrine.

Are defilement and sanctifies logged anywhere? Not just notices given at the time, but actual logs that can be referred to later.

Defilement is logged in the Order logs if it's witnessed by an Order member (via the WITNESS SHRINE command). Otherwise no, though Order members could write any information about defilements and sanctifications themselves.

Since it is possible to gain Favour from a deity for simple offerings, is it also possible to receive Favours by defiling, sanctifying or defending? 

If they know about it, then yes, they could choose to give out favours for it. However, since it's not logged anywhere automatically (that I know of - possibly Gods themselves do have access to more information) it's unlikely to happen on a regular basis.

Is there any game-mechanic reward (like Favour/Disfavour) for being in party that sanctifies, defiles or defends?

Nothing hard-coded that's automatically granted, but individuals with the ability can give House and city favours as well as other rewards for involvement in that kind of thing.

Is there any benefit to being in a room with a shrine for non-priestly characters?

The benefits are limited to Order members and the penalties are limited to Order enemies. If you're not part of or enemied to the Order of the God the shrine belongs to, there'll be no mechanical benefits or penalties from being in the room with a shrine.

Is there a limit to the number of shrines that a deity can have? If so, what determines the limit?

I suspect the only limit would be imposed by the number of rooms that exist.

Are there political or geographical restrictions on shrine locations beyond the 4-room distance from another shrine?

Political, yes. Most, if not all, cities likely have restrictions on which Orders can legally raise shrines in the city.

Does number of shrines to the patron of a city have any effect on House influence?

Not that I'm aware of.

Are there other activities that take place at a shrine besides sanctify and defilement?

Order members might choose rooms with shrines for events such as sermons, promotions, etc. if they don't have a dedicated or more suited room.

Mathonwy

1. You can help PK away the defilers/defenders (and it's often expected if you're e.g. in the lay order or pre-order clan) but people will probably hold you accountable (read: come after you in large numbers) for it.

2. There are certain thresholds at which shrines reduce in power, from something like huge to large to small to dormant to dusted, iirc. You can defile as much as you want, but if you don't dust the shrine it's pretty pointless since it'll just get re-sanctified. Also, whenever you defile, a message goes out on the Order channel with the room name, so you can expect company.

3. Think so, in Order logs, but only if it's dusted.

4. I mean maybe, but it's probably more of a general "hey you've been active doing things" favour than a "you defended x shrine on y day" favour.

5. No.

6. Depends. There are Order powers you can use from a shrine, but I'm p sure they're only useful for the order members/order enemies within radius of that specific shrine (except worldburn, which hits all Order enemies within shrine influence radius everywhere in the world).

7. Only how many you can keep up/sanctified. Keep in mind that shrine conflict is pretty tedious and the more you have to keep up the quicker your Order's going to get burned out on it.

Also there are places that Orders will generally unofficially designate as 'their' shrine places, so defiling to reraise one of your own is pretty conspicuous and can lead to a period of escalated conflict where people of Order X dust the shrines of Order Y and vice versa. This is known as 'shrine warfare.'

8. No, not really. Cities are a bit restrictive on whose shrines they allow in them, though, and raising them there without permission tends to go poorly for the Order in question (possibly sparking a shrine war), so you probably won't find one to e.g. Sartan in Cyrene...

...yet.

9. No, although HOUSE INFLUENCE generally isn't a very good indication of much except how many people are logged in from that House. Quantity, you might say, and not quality.

10. Some people might do rituals and stuff there, since it's a tangible point of influence (or whatever) for a certain God. But that's all RP, not mechanical.

Well, except one ritual I can think of that IS mechanical, but that God's dormant anyway.

ETA: obligatory

Tisel

So shrine defilement is mainly restricted to mid to upper level characters, and is predominately  used as an exercise in PK, while use of a shrine is a minor element in overall RP?

So the following scenario would not be allowed to happen?

Targ#1 defiles a Sartan shrine with 2 minor corpses and then leaves the area. Temple drops in power a little, and since it is only 2 defilements, they are be gone before defenders or witnesses show up.The City  is busy, so no one notices the messages, and no one comes to investigate. Then Ashtan#1 comes by with a few corpses, and just in case, offers to sanctify and it is accepted. He sanctifies with the rest, and now the shrine is back to full. No one knows that Ashatan#1 did anything at all, and Targ#1 has been noted but not witnessed. Targ#1 and Ashtan#1  continue with the minor defilements and sanctifies of each others shrines over the next few years, until they are good enough to join the teams that are doing the dusting and raising of full shrines. Both of them are taking part in something that actually matters, even if it is small. But what if one of them doesn't log in, and no one takes their place. Eventually the minor defilements drop a shine one level since no one is around to re-sanctify it from each of the minor defiles. With persistence of work by the lower level characters, a shrine could be dusted over the course of a year.

Sena

Ignoring the part about an Ashtani sanctifying Sartan's shrines (they aren't on the best of terms these days), that scenario is technically possible, but it would be extremely unlikely. Some problems with it are:

I don't think many people just randomly try to sanctify shrines without having a reason to suspect it's been defiled.

It would take a lot of care to ensure that you only defile when nobody is paying attention. For a small order, defiling during off-peak times when nobody is around, it could be possible. I think the defiling announcements show up in the order channel's history though (I could be wrong on that), in which case it would also require that people don't check the history. It would also require that the shrine is in a low-traffic area so people don't notice (from the description of the shrine in the room) that it's at less than full and needs to be sanctified.

If you have that many chances to regularly defile shrines without getting caught, why not just destroy shrines outright instead of chipping away at them over the years? Defiling just a tiny bit is pretty inconsequential even if it does go unnoticed. There's little reason to defile a shrine unless you're trying to destroy it completely or you're looking for a fight.

The effectiveness of your defiling depends on the value of the corpse. Weak denizens that a low level character would be hunting will do practically nothing for the shrine, whether it's defiling or sanctifying.

Defiling just isn't really designed for that sort of casual gesture of opposition, it's for active conflict that you should expect to be reciprocated.

Tisel

My idea was a way for low to mid level characters to get involved. As it stands now, 90+ get the big things, 60-90 are involved in city wars and shrines dusting, and under 60 seems to be relegated to gathering essence. But if it isn't designed for low level conflict, it won't work. 

Thanks for all of the answers.

Atalkez

Being in an Order isn't something most sub-60 players are going to accomplish. It's usually an arduous process as the Diety has to give the ending OK.

Masaryk

Antonius said:

T

Is there any benefit to being in a room with a shrine for non-priestly characters?

The benefits are limited to Order members and the penalties are limited to Order enemies. If you're not part of or enemied to the Order of the God the shrine belongs to, there'll be no mechanical benefits or penalties from being in the room with a shrine.

So if you are enemied to the Order and you are in a room with a shrine, are there any passive penalties or are all of the penalties active actions that must be done by an Order member?

Halos

Sena said:

Ignoring the part about an Ashtani sanctifying Sartan's shrines (they aren't on the best of terms these days), that scenario is technically possible, but it would be extremely unlikely. Some problems with it are:

I don't think many people just randomly try to sanctify shrines without having a reason to suspect it's been defiled.

It would take a lot of care to ensure that you only defile when nobody is paying attention. For a small order, defiling during off-peak times when nobody is around, it could be possible. I think the defiling announcements show up in the order channel's history though (I could be wrong on that), in which case it would also require that people don't check the history. It would also require that the shrine is in a low-traffic area so people don't notice (from the description of the shrine in the room) that it's at less than full and needs to be sanctified.

If you have that many chances to regularly defile shrines without getting caught, why not just destroy shrines outright instead of chipping away at them over the years? Defiling just a tiny bit is pretty inconsequential even if it does go unnoticed. There's little reason to defile a shrine unless you're trying to destroy it completely or you're looking for a fight.

The effectiveness of your defiling depends on the value of the corpse. Weak denizens that a low level character would be hunting will do practically nothing for the shrine, whether it's defiling or sanctifying.

Defiling just isn't really designed for that sort of casual gesture of opposition, it's for active conflict that you should expect to be reciprocated.

To add to this, the skill "shrine sight" can be performed at any shrine which shows the status of all that deity's shrines. Some Orders check this religiously. Dropping a shrine down level by level "over a year" would be noticeable, and they likely would go resanctify quickly or kill you.

Halos

Masaryk said:

Antonius said:

T

Is there any benefit to being in a room with a shrine for non-priestly characters?

The benefits are limited to Order members and the penalties are limited to Order enemies. If you're not part of or enemied to the Order of the God the shrine belongs to, there'll be no mechanical benefits or penalties from being in the room with a shrine.

So if you are enemied to the Order and you are in a room with a shrine, are there any passive penalties or are all of the penalties active actions that must be done by an Order member?

The second one.

Mishgul

Atalkez said:

Being in an Order isn't something most sub-60 players are going to accomplish. It's usually an arduous process as the Diety has to give the ending OK.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=diety