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New Keys for Religions

Started by Simon C, March 22, 2007, 10:56:05 PM

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Simon C

Hey, I'm messing around with implimenting the Sweet20 experience system (Keys) into another game with a pretty specific celtic/mythological irish flavour.  Think Slaine.  Anyhow, I was thinking that Keys could be a really interesting way to represent a polytheistic religion.  Characters can have keys related to the particular deities they favour, and get experience for fulfilling the behaviours associated with those deities.  I really want to emphasise a sort of alien morality in the game, where concepts of "good" and "evil" are kind of irrelevant.  I thought the Keys would be a good way to reward behaviour that's outside what is traditionally considered "good", to bring home that the characters have very different morals to us.

But I'm finding it really hard to write Keys.  Here's one I'm pretty happy with:

Key of Danu
Your character is a devotee of Danu, a goddess of nature and fertility.  Gain 1 XP every time your character indulges in an act of gluttony. Gain 2 XP every time your character engages in sex with a new partner.  Gain 5 XP every time your character provides enough food to feed a large group of people (more than 30).
Counter: Refuse to share food or sex.

I wonder though if it's not focussed enough for a good Key.  Most Keys have a pretty tight focus on one behaviour or motivation, but this doesn't.  One thing I'm realising is that the Counter is at least as important as all of the other items together in defining the Key.

Anyway, I'm looking for a Key of Morrigan (war/crow goddess), a Key of Cernunnos (hunter/fertility god), and maybe another couple.

Can anyone help?

Cheers,

Simon

oliof

Simon,
there are different sample implementations of Keys as Religious belief and the resulting Secrets. You might look for Sydney Freedbergs "Long Bridge" Keys and Clinton's own Yesterday's Heresies, complemented by George Shannon's material.