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[NinjaE8825]

I suggest gods (all spirits?) have these stats (I've scaled them 1-10 for convenience, but it might need more fine-tuning):

PERSONALITY: Much like mortals. Controls what will offend it or please it - sacrifice stuff it likes, more chance of it doing nice stuff for you. Of course, some gods would be more demanding or vengeful than others.
SPHERE: Controls what a god has power over. Agriculture, darkness, the sky, whatever.
POWER: Controls what level of miracles a god can do - Power 1 god of agriculture can make an orchard bear fruit during the winter 'cuz its worshippers are starving. Power 10, turns a desert into a lush, verdant paradise where the rivers flow with milk and honey for all time hence because its worshippers are starving.
INVOLVEDNESS: Controls how often a god involves itself in mortal affairs. Involvedness 1 is the Christian god, only showing up for rillyrilly important stuff, involvedness 10 is the demon-god of a goblin fortress who rules in person.

Worldgen settings related to gods:
Do gods exist? yes/no
'Cuz some people prefer to do without. Would set all involvedness to zero. Defaults to on, obviously.
Power inversely proportional to involvedness? yes/no
Makes it so the more powerful stuff a god can do, the less it interferes. Defaults to on, because it's a classical fantasy convention.
Power proportional to cult? yes/no
Makes it so the bigger a following a god has, the more stuff it can do.
Cult equals divinity? yes/no
Makes it so that anything getting enough prayer becomes a god, if it wasn't already, like demon rulers. Or the player character.
Average power? slider
Average involvedness? slider

[Rowanas]

I would alter the text for Involvedness 1, but that's just me...

Sounds good.I would argue for yet more RAWification, by allowingyou to set the involvedness, power and personality averages yourself, rather than using the settings you proposed, so that we ca fine-tune our gods to be whatever we want, in terms of activity and power.

[Wnderer]

There is only one religion worthy of the dwarfs. The religion from movies like Indiana Jones and lots of computer games.   

The Religion of Treasures and Traps

You build a temple with a statue of a god and fill it with treasure. Then you build a bunch of traps to protect the treasure. Adventurers come and try to steal the treasure. If the adventurer succeeds, the gods are unhappy, and they punish their followers. If the adventurer dies, the gods are happy and reward their followers.

Actually I think we should start this religion in real life.

[oitohca]

I was aware of the doubts of Toady regarding magic, and the similarities to the religion problem. That's why I started with a very atheistic-compatible approach: religion is just something that gives happy or bad thoughts to dwarves. Also tried to not affect too much the game mechanics. Truth is, I was just thinking in having a starting religion model with the minimum effort, and number of versions to go
In the end, interaction with gods could affect the world much like the magic, and religious groups like the guilds, which I think it was another difficult TODO. Being pragmatic, I just think there are many many things to improve just in the interface but oh well...
Still, I think you already gave many good ideas about how to go beyond that. Commenting them, in my opinion, gods' acts should be important punctual events, as much as the appearing of bronze colossus or sieges, probably even scarcer. Maybe, gods should just take the form "they most often" do (as a female dwarf for example) and do a single something, like creating an artifact for you, slaying a beast, filling quickly a large pond from his bottomless bucket, or fecundating a female with a to-be legendary baby (examples of rewarding actions) or destroying a workshop, killing the first dwarf they cross or fill something with magma (punishing actions). And be partly random, not something you as a player can totally control in your benefit.
As a final note, I saw there is a grammar nazi around, so I'm sorry if I said something badly, english is not my mother language, and I'm trying my best

[madjoe5]

True. If anything, religion should only be a minor aspect of forts. We don't want this game to turn into "Polytheism Simulator 2010." However, I think its necessary to dedicate some attention to religion, be it a noble or two or some sort of temple. Of course, what I'd love to see is it strongly incorporated into artifact stuff. In one of the DF talks, there was a segment of artifacts and their magical properties. Toady talked about all kinds of awesome-as-hell stuff where, say, that 2400 d-buck, seemingly useless leather scepter holds great power. Like, "when used in battle, our dwarves become immortal fighters.. but only at night" kind of thing. I'd love to see religious, moody dwarves to incorporate their god into their artifact; which becomes the key to whether or not it has magical/godly power. Throw in the "if you please the god, you get benefits/displease him, you get punished" idea earlier in the thread, and you get a perfect addition to DF, in my opinion.

[MrWiggles]

From what Toady has said on the topic of Religion, is that it'll play a part when guilds come back.

The dorfs will care more about their family, and their guild and religion. It doesn't seem like for now, that there will be to much difference between guilds and religion. Which, in they hit X number, or have X number in Y population, they'll get together make mandates for rooms, furniture similar to nobles.

Religious dorfs will try to convert one another. They'll get sad thoughts if other dorfs to bad things to their religion center, and if they dont have one after their mandate expires, as well if it gets destroyed during FUN.

And they're been talk about more internal drama, from guild wars and religious rivalries, block wars type things. Possibly actual combat, maybe murder, and vandalism.

Urist mcLutherian marries a Urist mcLatter-day-Saints, they cant attend either church.

Urist McMiner Mining Guild gets really pissy, along with Urist, because hes suddenly a farmer, and the Farmer Guild treats him badly, does mean things to Urist because he a freaken Miner.

Probably more fun things along these lines.

As for Gods interacting with the fort, that is ways ways, just ways off. God interactions wont happen until magic is being considered. And the fabled magic arc is post v1 DF.

[Rowanas]

God interactions wont happen until magic is being considered. And the fabled magic arc is post v1 DF.

A mythical thing that won't happen until an even less likely mythical thing happens. Wow. Just wow.

[Deimos56]

I suggest gods (all spirits?) have these stats (I've scaled them 1-10 for convenience, but it might need more fine-tuning):

PERSONALITY: Much like mortals. Controls what will offend it or please it - sacrifice stuff it likes, more chance of it doing nice stuff for you. Of course, some gods would be more demanding or vengeful than others.
SPHERE: Controls what a god has power over. Agriculture, darkness, the sky, whatever.
POWER: Controls what level of miracles a god can do - Power 1 god of agriculture can make an orchard bear fruit during the winter 'cuz its worshippers are starving. Power 10, turns a desert into a lush, verdant paradise where the rivers flow with milk and honey for all time hence because its worshippers are starving.
INVOLVEDNESS: Controls how often a god involves itself in mortal affairs. Involvedness 1 is the Christian god, only showing up for rillyrilly important stuff, involvedness 10 is the demon-god of a goblin fortress who rules in person.

Worldgen settings related to gods:
Do gods exist? yes/no
'Cuz some people prefer to do without. Would set all involvedness to zero. Defaults to on, obviously.
Power inversely proportional to involvedness? yes/no
Makes it so the more powerful stuff a god can do, the less it interferes. Defaults to on, because it's a classical fantasy convention.
Power proportional to cult? yes/no
Makes it so the bigger a following a god has, the more stuff it can do.
Cult equals divinity? yes/no
Makes it so that anything getting enough prayer becomes a god, if it wasn't already, like demon rulers. Or the player character.
Average power? slider
Average involvedness? slider

I like where this idea's going.
Perhaps certain events affect a deity's power in a given region. (or, if dramatic enough, as a whole)
For example, a massive (magic-induced?) fire that reduces a large forest to a wasteland might have significant consequences for gods of nature, destruction, and fire. Although I suppose it might get confusing for some of the gods that have opposing spheres (life/death and such).

God interactions wont happen until magic is being considered. And the fabled magic arc is post v1 DF.

A mythical thing that won't happen until an even less likely mythical thing happens. Wow. Just wow.

I'd imagine Toady will have some sort of framework created before that point.

[Emiteal]

If anything, religion should only be a minor aspect of forts. We don't want this game to turn into "Polytheism Simulator 2010." However, I think its necessary to dedicate some attention to religion, be it a noble or two or some sort of temple.

This was my first thought when I saw the topic title. A priest is a type of noble that arrives at some population point. He demands a temple, which is a room defined by an altar or somesuch (thus leaving you free to design it as you like). As population increases, he becomes a high priest, then a bishop or the pope or something. I would guess that the priest noble is a representative of whatever deity is your civ's primary.

Nobles who worship other deities might demand temples for their gods. (Could be triggered by a promotion due to pop increase, or just some random demand.) Additionally, you could freely design and designate temples and either you mark them for a specific deity or your dwarves do by using them (the way they do for bedrooms). Dwarves would get happy thoughts for visiting the temple of their deity. They might get unhappy thoughts if they were particularly religious (a function of personality) and did not have a temple specific to their god to visit.

Dwarves could have their marriage ceremonies held at a temple if they wanted. They could socialize while there and thus become better friends with members of the same sect. Basically, it becomes another place for your dwarves to hang out besides the meeting hall, statue garden, or zoo, and it's a place that religious dwarves would find important. Are the gods real? Don't know, don't care. It just becomes another part of the social dynamic, like religion in the real world.

Also, you could give each god a randomly generated date, and around that time of year, followers of that deity (if so inclined) could throw a party at the temple (or "festival") and other followers of that god might attend. Or just dwarves would want to go their god's temple at that one time of year and that's what would trigger an unhappy thought, if they had no temple to visit during the week that is assigned their god.

[Urist is dead tome]

Has the subject of fasting been discussed?

[IT 000]

The priest noble idea seems a bit much, you'd need one priest for every deity in your fortress. This would mean twenty lazy nobles walking around. Perhaps just have a 'religious advisor' position that is assigned by the player, the advisor will conduct meetings with the followers who are unhappy with they're temple and then will demand <DIETY>'s followers seek to have a <FURNITURE> in their temple. Going without the object causes an unhappy thought, every time they pray, the severity of they're unhappiness increases.

I think it's also logical to have a 'communal worship' option with the alter, somewhat like the dorm room any dwarf can worship at it but won't receive the happy thought of worshiping in they're own deities temple.

Dwarves may occasionally throw 'prayer sessions' at they're temples, acting much like parties except say 10% chance of throwing a prayer session and 90% chance of throwing a party.

Also a problem with the jealous god idea is that if you have two jealous gods the fun starts from phase one.

[Emiteal]

You wouldn't need one priest for every deity; one priest could be a representative for your civilization's religion as a whole.

[Waparius]

I actually think that having multiple priests would work, especially if, like the mayor, dwarves can meet with them to worship, baptise children, sacrifice or whatever to sooth unhappy thoughts. It sucks up idle dwarves in late-game fortresses, which can occasionally be a tricky problem. Of course this should depend on fortress population.

[harborpirate]

Why not let the influence of religion be based on the players actions? So, if the player has a huge, lavish temple built to one of the gods, that god gains more and more power to influence the world. If you build no temples, you might get a few unhappy thoughts, but the gods can't interfere. Also, another thread mentioned that you should be able to build a tower to heaven, kill the gods, and mine the silver lining; I'd be all for that as well.

[NightmareBros]

Just imagine if pleasing/anoying the gods did something random based on what that god does.

So really pleasing the god of minerals could make your fort/items turn into adamantine... and pissing him off could make you be attacked by a [mineral] collosus, and have your magma ducts turn into a stone type that melts.