Next set of Rules Changes

Rules Changes to go in effect as of today weekend

A character may not open a 2nd profession until they reach 5th level. [This will not affect any current players, any character who had multiclassed prior August 2014, and prior to 5th level will be grandfathered]

Level is calculated off build spent, not build earned.

Tomes and Manuscripts:
Learning from either a Tome or a Manuscript takes twice the time it would have taken to learn from a teacher.
(This will replace all other conflicting wording)

Retraining change, modify the sentence about training to a skill with a build differential.
"When retraining skills to the same skill at a different build cost, the character may self-train at the new cost before removing the former cost version of the skill. This can be used to retain a skill after removing the profession."

Rules that will come into effect during this weekend

New God

Visagalis
This is a relatively new power on the world, though some claim it is an old forgotten power. There is at this time no definitive answer as to who or what Visagalis is, only the claims that its followers make. They claim that Visagalis crafted all of the aspects in the world. To honor Visagalis, they devote their lives to embodying and exploring two aspects chosen by the priest and those aspects tend to seed a deep passion within the priests who have chosen them. They believe that Good and Evil were never actually aspects, but rather a device created to strengthen the worlds inhabitants and so Priests of the Aspects do not concern themselves with the philosophical battle of good versus evil. Instead they believe in the growth and flourishing of society. Visagalis acknowledges the laws of all kingdoms it passes through and will at all times seek to help that kingdom grow in the manor in which it wishes.

Visagalis does not have access to the light, dark, and sacrament domains; however, the clergy of Visagalis are free to explore any two existing domains other than the three they cannot access, and they can change the domains they have access to with faith and dedication. Because the choosing of an aspect is considered a deep and spiritually journey of exploration, it is rare that aspects are changed and this usually only happens if a priest feels that they have explored all that they can, or if they are experiencing issues with their personalities and have the will to change for their personal health.

Rank I: All mighty Visagalis hear my prayer... Multis ....
Rank II: All mighty Visagalis hear my prayer... Multis Deorum....
Rank III: All mighty Visagalis hear my prayer... Multis Deorum Partum....
Rank IV: All mighty Visagalis hear my prayer... Multis Deorum Partum Unum....

Philosophy of Visagalis:
The Story of Visagalis
A very long time ago, there was one power in the world. In the early days, this creator of all things crafted and gave life to all the aspects in the world that you are aware of now; all except for Fate. After a while, the creator realized that while it witnessed the beginning, it knew little of where it was going, and so after curiosity could be bared no longer, Visagalis created the aspect of Fate. Looking deep into this aspect, it saw its path, and ultimately its complete journey leading to its utter destruction. Visagalis chose at that point to change its own fate, through a masterful design. It created strife amongst its own aspects, pitting them against each other to a brutal end. Over the years this strife would grow and with the inhabitants of the world so vehemently apposed to one another, the inhabitants of the world grew stronger, and stronger, until they reached a height of power so great that they would be able to prevent the moment of Visagalis’s demise. For countless centuries this growth was fostered deliberately for the one and singular moment that has just now passed.

With the turning of the Age, and the threshold of the worlds end successfully crossed and avoided, Visagalis has once again made itself known in the world, choosing to reveal these secrets and histories little by little to those it has chosen. His faithful now grow in numbers and little by little the curtain is drawn back for those who wish to become enlightened.

Priests of the Aspects
Lay peoples have begun to refer to them as “The Priests of the Aspects”. Worshipers of Visagalis choose to devote their lives honoring and exploring two aspects. Those aspects tend to seed a deep passion within the priests who have chosen them. For this reason it is recommended to the flock that if they choose one “aggressive” aspect, that they decide to choose a “non-aggressive” aspect to temper their soul and allow their lives to feel more balanced.

These aspects are the focus of the religion, as the aspects are the original true creations of Visagalis. The aspects are as each follower sees and interprets them, however there is a base interpretation for each aspect, that the church itself has declared. These are explained in the work entitled “Beliefs of the Aspects”

Good versus Evil
Priests of Visagalis do not focus on good or evil, also known as light and dark, because these are not considered to be among the original aspects created. Instead they are the catalysts for the strife that was a tool to strengthen the inhabitants of the world, allowing them to overcome the worlds demise. Even though the church does not engage in the philosophical battle of good versus evil it does understand society and the need for the world to survive and thrive. As such the church promotes that which society deems the most necessary for that end. It acknowledges the laws of all kingdoms in passes through and will at all times seek to help that kingdom grow in the manor in which it wishes.

Beliefs of the Aspects:
Authority - Leaders inspire people to act, people in action changes the world.
Chaos - Certainty leads to complacency which leads to apathy, which leads to the death of the soul.
Compassion - Empathy allows us to understand each other, which leads us to understand ourselves.
Corruption - Corrupting forces test our souls to see if they are worthy.
Creation - The art and science of crafting brings utility and beauty to the world.
Death - All must die to end suffering, to end misery, and to feed new life.
Destruction - Every act of life is one of destruction. The result of the destruction is in your hands.
Fate - Everything happens for a reason, but it doesn't mean we need to accept that reason.
Knowledge - Knowing something makes it more real, what is well known is real despite its truth.
Law - Pacts between people must be fair, and abided by for all to benefit.
Life - This is the question which is answered by itself, what is the meaning of life?
Purification - When the ills of the world wear you down, there is salvation in purification.
Spirit - The actions we take are forever recorded on our soul. Be wise what you do.
Torment - Suffering is a great motivator for change. What motivation do you seek?
War - It is, at times, necessary to be the gardener ridding the garden of weeds.

Prayer Domains:
A clergy of Visagalis may learn any two domains with the exception of Sacrament, Light and Dark. In addition, they may unlearn a domain to learn a different domain using the regular respending rules, though they are encouraged to unlearn a domain only for role-play reasons.

Changes that will go into affect at the conclusion of this weekend

We are telling everyone now so that they can properly respend build based on these changes

Consecrate will be removed as a prayer and will now be a continuous skill. It will cost 1 build for Priests and Clerics and 2 build for Scholars.

Consecrate
Traits: Divine, Continuous
This ability can be used to create a holy symbol, holy water, or to bless other objects used in mass rites. In addition, it can be used to baptize a willing character to the caster's deity. Using this ability on a Font of the appropriate pantheon or deity allows the priest to create one vial of Holy Water. A character may only create one vial of Holy Water an event, regardless of the number of fonts she has access to.

Changes to the Racketeer List

Contacts (Skill Revised)
Contacts – 6 build
Skill (Periodic), Social
With this skill, a character gains a degree of influence through people they know. Whenever a target character is convicted of a single crime for which the punishment is not execution, exile or obliterations, the contacts used successfully cause any financial restitution to be reduced to 10 gold and any other type of punishment to be avoided altogether. An individual may only benefit from this skill working on them once every six months or once every three months if they hold a rogue list or once a month if it is being used on yourself. The Racketeer should denote on his target’s card which month he uses Contacts on the target.

Hired Help (Skill Revised)
Hired Help - 4 Build

Master Plan
Skill (Per Event), Social, Augment
This skill allows a character to organize a group of accomplices with the purpose of executing a specific plan. The character can include up to four other people in her plan. You must role-play discussing the plan for at least two minutes for each participant. A participant must have at least one Rogue profession to take part. After the planning has been completed, the participants can enhance any one of their skills that were learned from a Rogue profession. If a participant chooses to enhance a Periodic or Per Event skill, then she gains an additional use of that skill. If a participant chooses to enhance a skill that has a more advanced version, she will gain one use of that skill at one increment higher than she knows. The enhanced skill can only be used in some fashion that will coincide with executing the plan, by keeping the participant alive while performing her part of it, or enhancing the chance that the plan will succeed. A Rules Marshal must supervise the use of this skill. A character can only benefit from one Master Plan at a time. Master Plan cannot be used to give someone an extra use of Master Plan.

Extortion - 4 build (5 purchases Max)
You run an illegal operation where some of the local merchants around the Barony pay you money in return for not destroying their livelihood. For each purchase you make 5 gold per event. This skill represents a month’s worth of illegal activity.


In addition, later today I will be posting other changes that will balance the domains a little better, and a few incidental prayers and skills that have changed due to these changes. These changes will be posted so that you can respend build due to these changes. We may continue tweaking our changes after the event, and your thoughtful commentary in the realizing the character forum will help us, but this should give a good idea of where the prayers and skills are going.

Thank you to my rules marshals and the rules team for all of their hard work.

First of all, I'm really excited for Visigalis worshiper pcs, I think we've all been waiting for this since January.

However, since players start at level 5, how is the rules change about a second profession any different than what's already going on?

Please let me know if I am reading this right. "Level 5" requires 50 SPENT build, such that someone starting new with base build could not have a second list, BUT someone with more than the base 50 to start (from NPC work or a retired PC) could potentially have the required build to spend 50 in the first list and then open the second? Or would they have to have 50 build in the first list for one full event and THEN open the second list?

How does one go about learning to become a priest of Visagalis, or get baptized to visagalis, if there are no current priests in existence?

Jorik wrote: How does one go about learning to become a priest of Visagalis, or get baptized to visagalis, if there are no current priests in existence?

You just gotta believe, dude. You just gotta believe! Reach to the skies and shout for his/her glory to rain upon your soul! (This is a joke, not an answer...I'll shut up)

What are Visigalis' tenets?

Ven wrote: Jason - If you have extra build earned either via retiring a character, or from NPCing before you make your PC or for whatever other way you've acquired it then you would be able to start higher than 50 build, HOWEVER the first 50 build you spend would have to go to your starting list and then you could spend 10 or 15 build to buy a second list.

Can part of the 5 levels be body and/or racial, or do we need 5 levels in a class?

There will be a way this weekend for people to become baptized to Visagalis. In the near future, if you wish to be baptized to Visagalis and there is no-one around to do it, talk to me, and I'll set something up for you. After December, it will be just like if you wanted to become an Enaxian and there were no Enaxians around.

For now, go with the Visagalis philosophy as the RP guide. Your goal should be to work towards self betterment, and the betterment of the world around you. We do plan on working on the tenets of the gods at some point next year. This philosophy will serve for now. If they are working against the betterment of the world they are in, they are doing it wrong.

The 50 build to get to level 5 MAY include body and racials. It just needs to be spent.

I doubt this will come up soon, but have we determined the Secret 5th word for the Visagalis promo skill?

In terms of benefits from Mass, or other priest abilities that rely on pantheon alignment.

Are those that follow Visagalis, light, neutral, dark, or gain no benefits from said abilities?

Followers of Visagalis benefit from masses to Visagalis.

For the Consecrate skill, is this taught like benediction, wield faith, etc. or self taught like a prayer? Will we be able to self teach the skill to have it in September? Will a new prayer replace it?

We do have the fifth word, I will try to remember to edit it into the description above.

Visagalis is a Neutral God.

Anyone who had the prayer Consecrate will be given a free self teach of that skill
Unlearn Prayer: Consecrate -1 build
Consecrate 1 build

I have just been informed that we can just switch everyone who has consecrate over from the spell to the skill. Thank you Joe Hines!

Also, to reiterate, if your character is already in the system, you are grandfathered in to the limit on multi-classing. This is only for characters that have not been created as of yet.

For future reference, Consecrate is taught as a skill, not self-taught as a prayer.

For Visagalis, do the domains unique to dark gods still count as evil/dark power? Can archivists add Visagalis domains to their tome (using those words instead)?

Two questions.
1. What is the holy symbol of Visagalis?

2. What is the favored weapon of Visagalis?

I apologize for talbot yet including the holy symbol and weapon. We are not yet confirmed on them, but it is likely to be a multi faceted gem and either a 1 handed blunt and a staff. I will announce when it is finalized

Will there be a new rank 4 Ceremonialist "Pantheon" ability for Visigalis?

That is also being discussed.

Visagalis: "Have you ever wanted to get cool abilities without having to be constrained by consequences? Now's your chance, follow Visagalis today!" *yawn*

Frankly I think the entire concept is really going to ask too much of players who are already finding it difficult to decide in a RP sense how the "light and dark" interact with each other, let alone the "mushroom".

Sure, my character already has his opinions on the subject, and will act accordingly, it wont slow me down.

I worry that Knight Realms is going to have to enact more OOG rules (like "writs") to constrain RP when dealing with this type of weirdness and over-complication of an already strained system.


Frankly, there is enough to work with. We just have to encourage people to get more creative.

Belegchand wrote: For Visagalis, do the domains unique to dark gods still count as evil/dark power? Can archivists add Visagalis domains to their tome (using those words instead)?

1. That is something you should find out in game.
2. Yes you can.

I am quite happy with the allowance for players to follow Visagalis. I think it is interesting that it allows players to interpret the god in their own way and look deep into their character's personality by focusing on the aspects that best define them. For quite some time I was very confused on which path my character should follow, which took a strain on my RP. It took a lot of thought for my character to make the conscious decision to be baptized. I feel like making the change was one of the greatest decisions my character to make IG, because watching the everlasting struggle between light and dark was a major turn-off for me, honestly. I could go more into detail, but I fear that would have to be something discussed IG.

The point is I am sure there will be players who will decide to get baptized to Visagalis because it's the cool new thing or do make any combination of prayers that they want, but to imply that is the purpose of the change sounds a little unfair to me. Because the way I see it, the same could be said to those that play light and dark clergy as well. It is all a matter of perspective.

I am sorry if the above sounds a little passive-aggressive, for that is not my intention. I'd like to end this post on a happy note by sending a word of thanks to all the staff and marshals working on these changes. Thank you for all your hard work in trying to make this game a better place for all! We all really appreciate the hard work you put in this game and allowing it to grow and mature in a positive way!

Agreed, the addition of an entity/group of entities that can be worshiped by PCs for both RP reasons and game mechanic reasons really opens things up. I believe visagalis will be an interesting new addition to the cosmology, and once the bumps are all ironed out, it will be interesting to see where things lead.

Does this mean that we could eventually have kitanese priests who worship ancestor spirits and actually channelling their powers into prayers?

I will have to agree with James, we as players can get excited about game and sometimes forget to just take a step back from time to time. But I will say this

I Have fallen in love with this new Visagalis addition, not only is the write up so well written but the flavor it adds to game will be a grand thing. I myself love seeing players views on things, I feel it shows the love you all have for KR and the players and people who work so hard to maintain her.
so I will always encourage players views, but I agree strongly with James words.

With love and understanding
Romeo V

Jack wrote: 1. That is something you should find out in game.

While I do agree, as far as the legality of Visagalin prayers go, that's something for IG, I'm caring more about it from an alignment standpoint for the Heroic abilities for Ceremonialists and Templars, specifically the Divine Retaliation given by Anoint and Resist Evil from Templar.

Because Visigalis is a neutral deity Anoint and Resist Good/Evil will not work on any prayers cast by Visigalis.

I see a visagalis as a way that a PC can worship the aspect they want, yet truly remain neutral to the politics between light and Dark. My character has been so conflicted with which direction he wants to go. He is a good character, but also a live and let live type of person. Visagalis enables him to have spirituality and have both of those seemingly conflicting view points.