Religions

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Religious temple in a Metropolis node.[1]

We're talking about a pantheon here, not necessarily separate religions. They're all offshoots of who is the better god, or who is the god who identifies best with you.[2]Jeffrey Bard

There are six primary religions as well as a Tulnar/Underrealm religion.[3][4][5]

  • Religion is intended to be a motivator, not an aesthetic.[6]
  • Choosing a religion enables players to walk a light or a dark path through their choice of questlines and other actions.[7][8][2]
    • Players will not be able to worship The Others at temples, but certain quest paths will allow darker forms of worship.[9]
There will be questlines. There will be certain actions that players are capable of taking to perhaps pursue the darker side of this metaverse so to speak.[7]Steven Sharif

Sometimes games in the past have tried to shy away from heavy emphasis on religion because of the parallels that can occur between what is in the real world and this fantasy realm. I don't really subscribe to that theory. I think that religion plays a very significant role in the story of what Ashes of Creation is about and it is very much this almost monolithic idea of good vs. evil; so that is really at the crux of what the overarching narrative will be in the game; and I'm not trying to pigeonhole players into "everyone has to be good", like I said earlier there will be opportunities for players to deviate from that, should they so choose to roleplay in that regard.[3]Steven Sharif

  • PvP wars between religions are not a planned feature for the game.[10]

The Tulnar religion is a combination of religious beliefs of the major races as well as pagan beliefs of the minor races over time as they coexisted together in the Underrealm.[11]

The progression of the Tulnar- while they are still the staples of what were once the primary deities of the good pantheon remained for the Tulnar, over the time they existed and evolved into the society that they are at the return to Verra. It's much more similar... to the way the Creole religions advanced, with using components of Christianity as well as Voodoo and other smaller, more "paganesque" religions; and incorporated them into one. To that degree, you can correlate the way that society around the Tulnar has this almost combination of what were pagan beliefs from the minor races as well as the introductions of the major beliefs and religions from the major races, because they all came together in the Underrealm and survived in that regard. So you’re gonna see naturally a combination of those two things.[11]Steven Sharif

Pantheon of gods

"Planetarium" concept art by Ryan Richmond.[13]

The beginning of the creation of the universe that exists within Ashes of Creation was a result of a group of god beings. There were ten of them and there was a celestial struggle in this universe that resulted in a fraction of those gods. And there exists within this story two components of good and evil.[2]Steven Sharif

The ten deities within Ashes of Creation formed a pantheon of gods that existed in a realm outside of the material plane.[14][15] There was a celestial struggle among the gods that fractured them into good and evil.[14][2] Some gods influence the corrupt side of beings that exist in the Universe.[16][14] It is possible through questing and player decision to join or worship those gods.[7][8]

The gods are an active part of the story; and each of the cultures have their own interpretation of the whims and desires and focuses of the Gods.[17]Steven Sharif
  • The Others are three of the ten gods who embraced teaching all facets of The Essence (both good and evil) to The Ancients, and elevating them to the plane of the gods.[14]
  • The Seven gods' opposition to the Others resulted in a great celestial battle. The Seven were able to defeat the Others, banishing them and the Ancients to The Void. They went on to create four divine races and split their qualities between them.[14][2]

The Gods are beings of The Essence, which is a metaphysical energy or life-force of sorts that can be manipulated to create what could be viewed as magic.[14]

  • The Gods are capable of reaching into the material plane through the souls of their divine beings. In the case of The Seven these are the four great races and their descendants.[18]

There were these pantheon of gods that existed in a realm outside of the material plane that Verra exists in and they were really beings of what's called The essence. The essence is essentially this almost metaphysical energy or life-force that can be manipulated to create magic and/or what we would we would view as magic; and different planes have different degrees of strength when it comes to their proximity to the essence. The material plane is not the highest on that on that scale of being close to to the essence; and the gods exist on a plane that is the most connected to the essence.[14]Steven Sharif

The Gods in Ashes of Creation represent different aspects of the Universe, and feelings as well.[19]

Each god... has a specific realm that they relate to in the world and its creation.[2]Steven Sharif

We have a very rich lore on the pantheon of gods, but it's something that I want to make sure players discover in-game, not told about.[19]Steven Sharif

Temples

Temples are a unique service building that unlocks at Village (stage 3) of Divine nodes.[27][28]

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
  • Temples progress a religion within Verra. There will be competition between religions to build their temple in nodes with vacant temple slots.[29]

Benefits

As a player advances their rank within their chosen religion they will gain access to the following benefits.[30][31]

Let's say you go to the temple and you sign up to be a follower of that religion. There is an inter-organization quest line that can advance and rank and title and only one person can be the leader for a period of time. If they advance all the way to the top. So like during sieges they'll have special benefits like they can grant divine prayer buff to allies within x amount of distance of them during the siege.[32]Steven Sharif
Certain titles will have special abilities. They'll be able to do special things during a siege or an event. So as a bishop you maybe have access when these events or sieges come online a secondary hot bar that provides you with those abilities. You may get additional hit points. You may have additional damage mitigation. You're sort of like a leader amongst your citizens in that regard; and that would be true for the mayor as well and other positions.[33]Steven Sharif
  • Highest ranking members of a religion gain access to unique items from vendors.[30][31] These items are bound to the character and are lost when the character loses that rank.[34]
    • Discounts.[31]
    • Recipes are be unlocked based on a player's status within the religion.[35]
Q: Is it possible for a player character who has achieved the top spot in a particular religion to become an avatar of a deity?
A: You become a very prestigious member of the community in your node. You have certain powers that are granted to you during note events. If you're the highest ranking member, you get unique access to certain vendor tables and you have some directionality over the organization or religion's path for content of the other followers. There's some benefits there, but you don't become an avatar. You don't become a herald of the god.[30]Steven Sharif

Augments

Strong religions provide unique augments that can be applied to a player's primary skills.[31][6]

  • Religious augments are considered top-tier achievements within a religion.[31]
  • These augments can be stacked on top of class augments. They will have a give-and-take system based on the choices a player makes.[31]

You're going to have advancement within the religion and within the church that you're a part of. And those advancements are going to be both reflective of the community's development of that religion out in the world: Building temples, building infrastructure for that, completing certain quests for it; and then you will benefit from the community's development of that specific religion via having certain augment abilities that you'll gain access to be able to apply on top of your secondary class augments to skills; and it's going to reflect what the nature of that religion is.[36]Steven Sharif

Progression

There are player progression paths within a religion.[31][6]

  • Players may follow only one religion at a time.[31][6]
  • Religious progression is based on quests that are only offered to followers of that religion.[31]
  • Religions have a ranking system based on a player's performance in these quests and the number of quests completed.[31][37]
  • Changing religion will cause loss of progress in a player's previous religion.[31][6]
It depends on their dedication to the religion itself; their performance when it comes to certain religion's religious objectives; their contribution to the development of that religion within the world. There's a lot of different markers that we use at each stage to determine how they progress within the religion.[38]Steven Sharif

Atheism

Players may choose not to follow a religion.[39][40]

If you want to abstain from the religion progression path you may do so... It's not gonna hurt you I guess, because a lot of these augments are "sidegrades". But I think you'd be missing out on a lot of what the game has to offer.[41]Jeffrey Bard

To answer, "do you have to go down a religious path". You don't have to. The idea of that path is to provide a horizontal progression. So it doesn't become a requirement in order to maintain parity with other people advancing.[40]Steven Sharif

Affiliations

An affiliation tree determines which entities can participate in attacks against other entities within its hierarchy.[42][43]

There's node citizenship. There's guild. There's alliance. There's party. There's raid. There's family. All of these types of affiliations have a hierarchy. The highest of which is your node affiliation: So your citizenship is your greatest superceding relationship, which means if you were a part of a guild and the guild has multiple nodes in which its members are citizens of, if there was a war between two of those nodes, the members of those nodes would be first and foremost citizens who defend that node, even against their own guild members.[42]Steven Sharif

All of these things have some hierarchy; and within that hierarchy there's the ability to participate within certain systems. So for example, if you have a node that has fallen under your vassal state and you're a citizen of the parent node, then you could participate in a siege against the vassal node but if you're a citizen of the vassal node you could not participate as an attacker against the parent node; so there's a hierarchy, unless you were to renounce your citizenship.[43]Steven Sharif

Shrines

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Players may be able to build shrines on their freehold plot, based on their progression within their religion.[45]

  • Shrines may grant access to certain tithes that can be made to your deity.[45]
  • These could be a stepping-stone to unlock deeper progression within a religion.[45]
  • Shrines will not provide the same benefits as Temples but they are the "next best thing".[45]
  • Players may be able to pay to use other player's freehold shrines.[45]

Removing player corruption

The primary means to remove corruption is through death. Multiple deaths may be necessary to remove all corruption.[47][48]

  • Dying removes a significant portion of a player's corruption score.[49]
  • Gaining experience will also slowly reduce a player's corruption score.[50][51][47]
    Any experience that's gained by the player, whether it be through achievements in crafting, or in adventuring, or through other types of achievements: All of that experience goes towards your adventuring class experience gained; and then some experience can dual purpose towards professions as well. So if I reach an achievement in my crafting profession and that grants me additional experience within that profession to rank up, it will also grant the same amount of experience over in my adventuring level; and to that point, anytime you gain adventuring experience you tick away at the corruption.[50]Steven Sharif
  • A quest may be utilized to reduce the player kill (PK) count of a corrupt player in order for them to accumulate less corruption score in the future.[52][49]
    • This is a design shift from a religious quest being used to directly reduce the corruption score.[53]
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Artwork

See also

References

  1. Node series part II – the Metropolis.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Livestream, May 26, 2017 (15:37).
  3. 3.0 3.1 Podcast, November 15, 2020 (29:23).
  4. Interview, July 19, 2020 (23:15).
  5. religions2.jpg
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Livestream, May 8, 2017 (44:51).
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Podcast, November 15, 2020 (20:04).
  8. 8.0 8.1 Livestream, 2018-04-8 (AM) (16:50).
  9. 9.0 9.1 Livestream, July 30, 2021 (1:13:11).
  10. Forums - Livestream Q&A 2022-08-26.
  11. 11.0 11.1 Podcast, November 15, 2020 (31:13).
  12. Livestream, November 22, 2019 (24:33).
  13. May newsletter.
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 14.6 Livestream, November 8, 2020 (0:00:00).
  15. Livestream, May 26, 2017 (10:58).
  16. Livestream, November 8, 2020 (11:48).
  17. Livestream, December 2, 2022 (1:18:26).
  18. Livestream, November 8, 2020 (00:49).
  19. 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 Livestream, 2018-04-8 (AM) (10:02).
  20. Interview, July 20, 2020 (13:33).
  21. 21.0 21.1 Interview, October 31, 2018 (6:00).
  22. steven-phoenix.png
  23. Livestream, November 3, 2018 (0:01:18).
  24. Livestream, November 3, 2018 (0:00:20).
  25. Livestream, November 3, 2018 (0:06:56).
  26. Livestream, May 12, 2017 (54:35).
  27. Video, August 31, 2023 (33:07).
  28. Livestream, October 31, 2018 (52:38).
  29. Livestream, May 26, 2017 (10:58).
  30. 30.0 30.1 30.2 30.3 Livestream, March 31, 2023 (1:34:11).
  31. 31.00 31.01 31.02 31.03 31.04 31.05 31.06 31.07 31.08 31.09 31.10 31.11 31.12 31.13 Livestream, July 25, 2020 (57:02).
  32. 32.0 32.1 Interview, July 29, 2020 (20:16).
  33. 33.0 33.1 Livestream, July 25, 2020 (1:52:45).
  34. Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:35:56).
  35. Livestream, 2018-04-8 (PM) (28:38).
  36. Livestream, June 1, 2017 (31:47).
  37. religions.jpg
  38. Livestream, June 1, 2017 (33:40).
  39. atheist.jpg
  40. 40.0 40.1 Interview, October 20, 2018 (0:00).
  41. Livestream, June 1, 2017 (34:12).
  42. 42.0 42.1 42.2 42.3 42.4 42.5 42.6 42.7 Livestream, March 29, 2019 (17:10).
  43. 43.0 43.1 43.2 43.3 43.4 43.5 43.6 43.7 43.8 Interview, May 11, 2018 (58:07).
  44. Livestream, July 29, 2022 (1:07:20).
  45. 45.0 45.1 45.2 45.3 45.4 Livestream, May 24, 2017 (9:58).
  46. Livestream, July 9, 2018 (20:41).
  47. 47.0 47.1 Interview, July 18, 2020 (44:35).
  48. Interview, April 27, 2017 (0:17).
  49. 49.0 49.1 Interview, July 19, 2020 (30:51).
  50. 50.0 50.1 Livestream, April 28, 2023 (1:27:18).
  51. CC effects do notapply to non-combatants.png
  52. steven-removing-corruption.png
  53. Livestream, June 4, 2018 (2:18).
  54. pvp corruption duration.png