A Pretender is essentially the player character in Dominions 6. In the wake of the Pantokrator's disappearance, Pretenders rise to lead their nations to greatness and attain divinity for themselves.

In Dominions 6, the player has a great deal of control over the characteristics of their Pretender. Pretender design involves determining the following aspects of the Pretender:

• "Chassis" (what type of creature the Pretender is)
• Magic paths and bless
• Dominion strength
• Scales (the character/effects of friendly dominion - lands under the influence of the Pretender)
• Awakening period

The player begins with 450 design points with which to build their pretender, minus those required to purchase the chosen chassis. Pretender design consists of purchasing positive characteristics with these design points, and making concessions to gain more design points to spend elsewhere.

You can save and load pretender designs using the shortcuts ctrl+s and ctrl+l respectively.

The specific type of creature used as the basis of a Pretender design is known as the "chassis". Chassis range from highly durable but immobile statues to merely very skilled mages who have attained immortality and now yearn for more. Each chassis has its own characteristics and comes with a base spread of magic paths, with a design point cost reflecting those traits. To change chassis, left-click on the creature which is currently chosen for your pretender. To inspect a particular chassis' traits, right click on it.

In the Pretender design interface, chassis are organised according to their base dominion strength, which is either 1, 2, 3 or 4. Chassis of dominion strength 1 are typically humanoid mages who can inexpensively purchase new magic paths. Chassis of dominion strength 2 are typically monsters (dragons, great serpents, etc.) which are physically powerful from the beginning of the game, but can only purchase new magic paths at great expense. Chassis of dominion strength 3 are "titans", giant humanoid creatures which are often more flexible than monsters but less durable at the baseline. Chassis of dominion strength 4 are typically immobile statues or monuments, which are very durable and can purchase new magic paths at moderate cost, but cannot move on their own. Note that there are exceptions in each category.

In Dominions 6, certain chassis also alter the limits on scales, which can usually only be increased or decreased by 2 from the default for that nation. For example, choosing the Great Mother for the chassis of your pretender allows you to take up to 3, instead of only 2. The lower limit moves up in tandem; in the Great Mother example, the Growth scale could go to at most 1, up from 2. Changes to scale limits from Pretender chassis do not stack with national scale limit changes. For example, choosing the Void Lord (which usually allows taking +1 Magic scale) on LA R'lyeh (which natively allows +1 Magic limit) still results in a maximum magic scale of 3.

The base paths and scale limit changes of each pretender can be made visible by pressing TAB on the Chassis select screen.

In Dominions 6, Pretenders cannot be affected by spells that would cause their shape to change, such as Twiceborn, Transformation, Lichcraft, etc.

Additional magic paths over the baseline for a chassis may be purchased using design points. Purchasing higher levels in magic over a chassis' default for that path costs 8 × level of path over default. The exception is purchasing the first level of a totally new path, which costs 10 to 80 points depending on chassis.

See Blesses for more information.

Every level of skill a pretender has in a magic path over 1 provides 1 bless point. Bless points can be used to purchase blesses that the pretender's magic paths and scales fulfil the prerequisites for.

See Divine Magic for more information.

If a solitary Pretender God has any magic path at or above level 4, the Banishment and Smite spells for the nation's priests will change; if there are multiple paths at or above level 4, the highest one is chosen for determining Divine Magic. If a pretender has more than one path of magic in which they are equally skilled, Divine Magic spells are taken only from the path closest to the left (i.e. prioritizing Fire first and Blood last).

These spells are set at Pretender Creation, and cannot be changed either by empowerment or the loss of magic paths. See Banishment Spells for details.

MA Ermor and Lemuria do not gain these spells.

Pretenders with 3 or 4 levels in any given path will get that path's set bonus.

See Dominion for more information.

Dominion strength represents how fervently your pretender is worshipped by their people.

The dominion strength of a pretender can be increased over the baseline for that chassis using design points. Each point of dominion strength costs 7 × additional dominion strength over default. This means that it gets more expensive to purchase dominion as it increases. Chassis that begin with dominion strength 4 are usually preferable if very high dominion strength (9-10) is desired.

Dominion strength determines how many sacreds you are able to recruit in any one province. It also increases the likelihood that your pretender's dominion will spread into lands which already contain enemy dominion, better spreading your pretender's influence through the world.

Dominion strength can be increased after pretender design, during the course of a game, by building temples. Each 5 temples built will increase dominion strength by 1.

See Scales for more information.

The six scales represent the character of the pretender's dominion, and how the worship of that pretender influences the provinces it has dominion over. For example, a pretender whose dominion is strong in Growth and Productivity will cause provinces it has dominion in to grow more rapidly and provide many resources for building units. On the other hand, a pretender whose dominion is strong in Death and Misfortune will cause its provinces to not grow, or even lose population, and experience more unfortunate events.

By default, scales can be increased or decreased by 2 at most. Increasing a scale improves its benefits but costs 40 design points, while decreasing a scale causes penalties but grants 40 design points. Certain nations, and certain pretender chassis, will alter these increase/decrease limits, allowing them to be increase or decreased more.

Pretender Gods may either appear Awake, be taken Dormant, where they will usually appear between turns 11 and 14, or Imprisoned, appearing between turn 29 and 42. For Trinity Pretenders, all three will awaken at the same time. Choosing for a pretender to be dormant or imprisoned provides +150 or +350 additional design points respectively over an awake pretender.

The arrival of the first Dormant and first Imprisoned Pretender God is always announced to the world on the exact turn they appear, although which God has awoken is not stated.

In Disciples games, Pretender chassis which act as Prophets awaken after half the normal period of dormancy.

Until a Pretender awakens, you will not receive the effects of Incarnate blesses, but you will receive the path-related Banishment and Smite spells their magic dictates. This is also true if a Pretender is banished to another Plane.

Upon awakening, your Pretender reveals the locations of all as-yet undiscovered thrones.

A Pretender God produces 3 Temple Checks while on the map, and is one of the few ways for nations with Dying Dominion such as EA or LA Mictlan to spread dominion naturally.

Pretender Gods, including each member of a Trinity individually, are always capable of claiming Thrones, and in friendly Dominion will bless Sacred troops and commanders fighting alongside them.

The Hit Points, Strength, and Magic Resistance of a Pretender God depend on the strength of Dominion they are located in. For each friendly or enemy candle they are located in, they gain the following bonuses or penalties:

Pretenders, much like Prophets, carry over their current but not max HP levels from the prior turn. This level of health will not change until they are affected by remote attacks, combat, or the healing and disease-related damage phase near the end of each Turn on the strategic map.

Pretender Gods (as well as prophets and disciples) are always blessed in their own dominion without needing a priest to bless them, including otherwise Innate blessings such as Water Breathing, Recuperation, or Half Dead. Outside their dominion, they lose this benefit, and can't be blessed.

If a pretender dies it is not permanently dead; instead, it can be recalled using priests. To bring back a Pretender God which has died, around 50 priest-level turns must be spent using the Call God command to recall them. The amount of recall points generated is [Holy level + 1d3 -2] according to Loggy's tests. Priests with an Elegist bonus receive additional priest levels for this purpose.

In Disciples games, the priests of the Pretender God can assist in recalling any dead Disciple God on their team. Any Disciple nation's priests can also help recall the main Pretender God, but not other Disciples than their own nation's.

Although Pretenders can be recalled from death, it can still have consequences. Unless the god is immortal (and wasn't killed by Soul Slay) or its nation is Ur/Uruk, death can result in the potential loss of one level of a magic path to a limit of 0, biased or the loss of a point of Dominion, to a base level of 1. The chance of losing a magic path is [50% + 10% / level of Nature] (in tests 80% with any nature paths). If the pretender had no magic paths, it will automatically lose one point of dominion strength. Nature magic is the most likely to be lost (~80-90%), death the least likely. There is also about a 20% chance for a pretender to gain either 1 Death, 1 Astral, or 1 Blood magic on recall, in addition to any other effects.

Your Pretender God once recalled will always appear in your capital province. If you own the province the Pretender will spawn inside the fort - even if your capital is under siege. If you have lost your capital province the pretender will spawn outside the walls.

Upon a Pretender God's return, a heal check is rolled against any Afflictions they picked up, including Disease, but not the Cursed status or Horror Marks.

Pretenders with the Immortal trait respawn automatically after a while and cannot be recalled. The latter can be a boon on nations with weak priests or a curse on nations with strong priests. If their soul is destroyed, they are treated as normal gods, meaning they may lose paths and must be recalled.

Pretenders of Ur and Uruk will never lose nor gain paths upon death. Combined with their national priests with the Elegist trait these nations can play more aggressively with their pretenders compared to other nations.

Trinity pretenders are chassis which, when chosen, provide three different units instead of one. Magic paths bought are shared amongst each member of the trinity.

Having three gods instead of one triples the number of actions that can be taken with these pretenders. However, if they are alive and in different provinces, they temporarily lose paths (-1 for each one missing) and don't spread dominion. If any of the trinity members die, each requires 25 recall points to bring them back to life, meaning it requires 50% more points to bring all back to life, and only one can be resurrected at a time.

For trinity pretender gods, one member of the trinity is designated the "primary member". The paths on the primary member of the trinity dictate whether, and how, Banishment and Smite are replaced.

If the first member cannot use certain magical paths, but has access to others, it will replace the listed custom priest spell on the Pretender Creation screen with another, in the same order as a solitary pretender.

For the base game's pretender chassis, this means that:

• the Hooded Spirit may not use the Earth or Water Banish and Smite variants.
• the Grey Ones may only use the Death, Water, Nature, and Blood priest spells, and using the Death and Water variants requires Death 7 or Water 7 due to how these paths are split and reduced across the trinity.
• the Titan of the Crossroads has -1 Death and -2 to all other paths in terms of deciding Custom Priest Spells.
• the Morrigna has -1 Death and -2 to all other paths in terms of deciding Custom Priest Spells.

For the purpose of Magic Duel, the base path level shown when empowering is counted, meaning the -2 malus in pretender creation is included for Morrigna and the Titan of Crossroads. The malus from splitting up the pretenders during the game is not counted for the purpose of base paths. Empowering works normally - no paths are deducted – as does path loss from dying.

Each trinity chassis distributes paths differently. For example a 55555555 pretender would be distributed as seen below: