Disclaimer: I am in no way a programmer nor do I have any plans on making a server anytime soon. This is purely an idea I feel like someone would like and use or make for their own. I am completely aware of how massive an idea it is and how challenging it would be to make if not time consuming. I feel like any server setting could potentially use it and could be an alternative to leveling up. Several people have expressed interest in wanting the system for their own servers, there just hasn't been anyone to take it up yet. Inspiration: Awhile ago I played a concept dungeon crawling RPG game that for the life of me I can't remember the name to (Found it! It's called Desktop Dungeons) in which you find alters of gods and pray to them for powers, healing or protection at the cost of various things: such as your exp, items, health or even your life and you still had to obay that god's rules. I liked the concept but there was quite a few things about it I didn't like. Since there are no interesting God themed plugins on Minecraft like this, (that I could find at least) I figured it would be interesting to put a similar system in place. The concept: You may only align yourself to one god. You have an alter (something that could be designated by an admin or using a custom item) in which you may "offer" up items from your hand to please whatever deity you pray to to gain "praise". Each one can like specific things and hate others. (disliked items can cause gods to dislike you; that'd be bad) leaving one god to go to a new god would anger the previous one and cause some kind of bad effect to happen to the player. High praise can cause good buffs or grant players items, enchantments, or whatever comes to mind. To gain praise you must fallow the god's rules. Alters would be used as an "alternative" to gaining praise when you are otherwise unable to to do the god's bidding at that time. Examples: The nature god doesn't want you killing animals, or even chopping down trees. She will instead like it if you plant saplings, breed animals, grow farms and even grass. In exchange for doing her bidding and gaining praise, she will give you blocks of wood, leather, meat periodically or strengthen the effects of food, or improve crop production. The undead god on the other hand wants you to kill every living thing. Players, animals even monsters, but he doesn't want you to be attacking his undead minions. (though that doesn't necessarily mean the undead won't still attack you until you reach a certain threshold of praise in which they will only ignore you) In exchange, he will grant armor enchantments, immunity to certain effects or keep the player from dieing on very rare occasions. Failure to do his bidding would result in a loss in attack or defense, or even dropping the health down to 2 hearts and no way of bringing it back up without praise or until a certain amount of time. Other god ideas: A water god that won't grant many buffs, but would allow you to stay underwater for longer amounts of time. (used for underwater cities) A nether god that doesn't want you killing his minions, nor wants you to spend too long outside of the normal world. Building portals to the nether earns praise. A mining god that gives extra drops in what you mine for after earning high praise. A God of peace: can not kill anything at all. Grants random occasional mob drops and protection. A trickster/punishment god. A god that constantly and randomly grants terrible status effects that the player must endure with very rare chances at rare items or goods. Other ideas I've had based on this system: Gods that are based on biomes and are more powerful within those biomes. Ment more for people who do not necessarily like the idea of god alignments only. One could also offer items to that god's alter for temporary buffs or as long as they stay within the biome while players can be punished within the biomes for not. God alignments have strengths/weaknesses to each other. Ment for a possible PVP faction system. Gods that turn players into either mobs or player created mod based creatures like werewolves, zombies, or maybe with a class based system with paladins where the player must then work their way up praise and ranks to level up and gain new abilities (similar to McMMO) "System" ideas: Again, I am no programmer, so what I'd say in this probably has little baring on what would actually have to be done, but when it comes to how the gods behave, I would imagine it'd be on similar grounds to relationships in (and I know this sounds crazy) the Sims series. When you first align yourself to a god, the number starts at say, 50 or maybe 100. if it drops below half, the god will start to get angry. From the moment you align yourself to them, the number slowly drops overtime. The idea is to try and keep it above 200 or more to start earning buffs and goods. at maybe 300 or more there's a sure chance/high chance for something from your god, but then the number will reset after that back to 200 meaning the player must continue working for new buffs. I've also thought about short term or minor buffs that the player may get randomly once a day depending on how much praise was given that day. possibly based on the alter itself. I'm not entirely sure if that would over-complicate things or not though, and this sort of thing is certainly not my field.
