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[Urist McVoyager]

The short version: Create a set of personality traits that make certain dwarves prone to believing in an unseen God that controls only their Fortress.

Basically, the dwarves would see the player's hand in things, and start wondering if s/he exists. When one of your dwarves begins thinking this way, you get a pausing announcement that tells you about it. You can then decide to either treat that dwarf the same way you always have, in which case nothing comes of it, or you can start interacting with that dwarf personally, in increasingly direct ways. Once you get a dwarf truly believing in you, they'll start talking to you directly, sending you prayers. Maybe there would be a secondary Nobles screen showing you your followers and their Prayers, which could function like the Mandates from Nobles. Only with different effects for fulfilling or rejecting them.

There's more to it, but I've gotta leave for work soon. I'll be back later today.

[Skullsploder]

I quite like this, but I'm not sure everyone will go for it. But Toady did add that sarcastic legends mode entry for retiring fortresses, so who knows. Still, it would be nice to see dwarves showing evidence of analytic thinking.

[TheHossofMoss]

The short version: Create a set of personality traits that make certain dwarves prone to believing in an unseen God that controls only their Fortress.

Basically, the dwarves would see the player's hand in things, and start wondering if s/he exists. When one of your dwarves begins thinking this way, you get a pausing announcement that tells you about it. You can then decide to either treat that dwarf the same way you always have, in which case nothing comes of it, or you can start interacting with that dwarf personally, in increasingly direct ways. Once you get a dwarf truly believing in you, they'll start talking to you directly, sending you prayers. Maybe there would be a secondary Nobles screen showing you your followers and their Prayers, which could function like the Mandates from Nobles. Only with different effects for fulfilling or rejecting them.

There's more to it, but I've gotta leave for work soon. I'll be back later today.

I dig this suggestion! +1

[Urist McVoyager]

This is part of something much bigger, but I'm not sure whether it would fit in with Toady's vision.

I've always had this idea of a big meta-game, where you could pull resources from one game and use them in another. In this instance, if you go far enough in the God Game I set up in the previous post, you could actually uplift your self aware dwarves into gods, and the game would flag them. Their information would be stored in a folder in the Raws, and when you generated another world, you could choose to plant some of those Gods into your new world, and they would affect the world according to their personalities, which you would have had a big hand in molding.

Since you'd be the only one able to move Gods around, it would support the interpretation of the Player as Armok. You'd be the God of Gods. Even if the total idea doesn't make it in, bits and pieces could still add flavor later on. It's not optimal to add this stuff until after we can send our people into the world at large. Before that, this is nothing more than a fancy toy that lets you alter the efficiency of your fortress to a moderate degree.

[Cobbler89]

I can never remember whether it's possible, with modding, to create specific gods that may/will show up in a world with the raws of your customization. If it is (or if it will be someday), then perhaps an industrious modder could make a tool that allows you to convert individuals in one world into modded gods for future worlds?

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Question: What happens if you decide to target the dwarf rather than help them?

[Urist McVoyager]

That would be a workaround.

I don't think it's possible to build custom gods. Remember, they're procedurally generated like everything else. You could create a creature that merits the term, I'm sure, but the closest you'd get to worship is people making art depicting its escapades. Gods aren't really active in-game, anyway. Other than curses and releasing Demons, they don't do anything yet. I'm sure that will change in upcoming versions, at some distant point in the future.

And to that question: You would see a rebel form who pulls off targeted acts of destruction aimed to disrupt fortress life. Once they're convinced you're an evil God, they'd either do everything in their power to stop you, or they'd work to join forces with you, depending on their personality.

In the end, it'd be entirely possible to create a Dark God. Just as possible as a Light one.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

And to that question: You would see a rebel form who pulls off targeted acts of destruction aimed to disrupt fortress life. Once they're convinced you're an evil God, they'd either do everything in their power to stop you, or they'd work to join forces with you, depending on their personality.

I kinda want to see this implemented just to see what happens if you act benevolent to one dwarf, and malevolent to another.

[Urist McVoyager]

Me too! No matter how close Toady might get to my suggestion, we all know there'd be emergent behavior. I'd be interested to see if two separate faiths formed that would fight each other. Loyalty Cascades would abound, except they'd probably just result in a large portion of the Fortress population leaving player control and doing their own thing. Maybe even leaving the map to found their own settlement.

[Lord Dalek]

I totally support this idea, and the idea of lifting the self-awre dorfs into Godhood.

Urist McPhilospher

Urist McPhilospher most often takes the form of a male dwarf, and is associated with warfare, hate, and stupidity.

In a time before time, Urist McPhilospher was lifted into Godhood by Armok.

Please make this a thing.

[Urist McVoyager]

So, here's an example of what I'm thinking, just to get the full idea out there, I'll have observations of the mechanics in perentheses:

Urist McObservant has known his fellow six founding dwarves all his life. They were all average dwarves from their kingdom. Yet somehow their new fortress is drastically more efficient than anything the other dwarves have ever had (Let's face it, player-run forts are worlds apart from whatever the game makes on its own). Urist McObservant suspects, but does not know, that there's an unseen hand at work here. (At this point you would get an announcement that an unseen hand is suspected. There's no pause involved, it's just there so you know.)

Urist McObservant spends his idle time out in the meeting hall, despite having a room of his own he could settle down in like everyone else. He talks to others, and keeps his ears open for news from the outside world. Looking for some explanation. There isn't one, besides players. After a while, McObservant is convinced. (At this point, you do get a pause. If you were watching closely and checking thoughts you probably already know who it is, but until now you really shouldn't even touch the person.)

Urist McObservant doesn't want to spook whoever's in power until he knows what sort of deity he's dealing with. (At this point you can choose to give him a sign, good or evil, by how you treat him. Elevate him to a coveted noble position, or give him great furniture. Or beat the utter shit out of his life. Assign his wife to stand under a bridge and atom smash her, or send his son outside for a snatcher to take. You could choose to just sit there and not even touch him if you wanted the game to remain the same.)

NOW he knows what you are. He goes to a room all alone, or outside where no one is, and talks directly to you. (You'd get a screen like the Outpost Liason gives you, where he can confront you and ask you what you want from him. Instead of a trade agreement, you'd get a list of possible rules you can lay upon him. In exchange, he'd have prayers you should answer. They're like a Noble's mandates, but the penalty for failure would depend on Urist's personality. It might just be disgust at you as he suffers his way out of your following, or he might just turn into a terrorist and fuck the fortress up before leaving and bringing back an army to kill your fort.)

Eventually, Urist's faith spreads throughout the fortress and everyone is following a standard set of rules that improves fortress life. With the cult flourishing, they begin sending out emissaries to other settlements, spreading the faith. Pilgrims (Probably from multiple races, not just your own) flock to the fortress and it becomes a holy capital. Over time, everyone knows of you in some way. Including the other gods. (At this point we could roll in that pantheon and holy war suggestion that already exists elsewhere in the suggestions forum.)

[TheHossofMoss]

So, here's an example of what I'm thinking, just to get the full idea out there, I'll have observations of the mechanics in perentheses:

Urist McObservant has known his fellow six founding dwarves all his life. They were all average dwarves from their kingdom. Yet somehow their new fortress is drastically more efficient than anything the other dwarves have ever had (Let's face it, player-run forts are worlds apart from whatever the game makes on its own). Urist McObservant suspects, but does not know, that there's an unseen hand at work here. (At this point you would get an announcement that an unseen hand is suspected. There's no pause involved, it's just there so you know.)

Urist McObservant spends his idle time out in the meeting hall, despite having a room of his own he could settle down in like everyone else. He talks to others, and keeps his ears open for news from the outside world. Looking for some explanation. There isn't one, besides players. After a while, McObservant is convinced. (At this point, you do get a pause. If you were watching closely and checking thoughts you probably already know who it is, but until now you really shouldn't even touch the person.)

Urist McObservant doesn't want to spook whoever's in power until he knows what sort of deity he's dealing with. (At this point you can choose to give him a sign, good or evil, by how you treat him. Elevate him to a coveted noble position, or give him great furniture. Or beat the utter shit out of his life. Assign his wife to stand under a bridge and atom smash her, or send his son outside for a snatcher to take. You could choose to just sit there and not even touch him if you wanted the game to remain the same.)

NOW he knows what you are. He goes to a room all alone, or outside where no one is, and talks directly to you. (You'd get a screen like the Outpost Liason gives you, where he can confront you and ask you what you want from him. Instead of a trade agreement, you'd get a list of possible rules you can lay upon him. In exchange, he'd have prayers you should answer. They're like a Noble's mandates, but the penalty for failure would depend on Urist's personality. It might just be disgust at you as he suffers his way out of your following, or he might just turn into a terrorist and fuck the fortress up before leaving and bringing back an army to kill your fort.)

Eventually, Urist's faith spreads throughout the fortress and everyone is following a standard set of rules that improves fortress life. With the cult flourishing, they begin sending out emissaries to other settlements, spreading the faith. Pilgrims (Probably from multiple races, not just your own) flock to the fortress and it becomes a holy capital. Over time, everyone knows of you in some way. Including the other gods. (At this point we could roll in that pantheon and holy war suggestion that already exists elsewhere in the suggestions forum.)

My question is, can we kill gods? If so, can gods kill you?

[Meme]

How about not just dwarves, but any creature in world gen can gain enough following to become a god. This could make ancient vampires especially dangerous in a fortress as they could easily gain a cult around them.

[TheHossofMoss]

How about not just dwarves, but any creature in world gen can gain enough following to become a god. This could make ancient vampires especially dangerous in a fortress as they could easily gain a cult around them.

Oh gosh that'd be difficult to go up against!

[Urist McVoyager]

It's not so much the following that creates the Gods in this instance, it's the player. I'm all for Gods in-game being able to uplift subordinate gods of any species, since that's what you'd be doing under this sort of system. I suppose Vampires could be uplifted, if they came to the attention of rivals of the god who cursed them in the first place, but they'd start out as tools of those gods and work their way up.

This would also encourage you NOT to abuse the self aware folks, because they might leave your settlement and stumble on a sympathetic god who supports them and vows to destroy you.