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pretenders

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Pretenders

The information in this revision of the article is accurate as of Patch 5.39.

This page concerns mechanics specific to Pretender Gods. For Pretender Creation Strategy, consult Pretender Creation Strategy

A Pretender God consists of a chassis which possesses magic paths that may affect Custom Priest Spells and Blesses. It is also the source of a nation's Scales alongside any effects from 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.

Awakening

Pretender Gods may either appear Awake, be taken Dormant, where they will appear between turns 10 and 14, or Imprisoned, appearing between turn 30 and 42. For Trinity Pretenders, all three will awaken at the same time.

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 God 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.

Pretender Gods and Dominion Score

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:

  • +/-10% Hit Points (to a minimum of 10%)
  • +/-½ Magic Resistance
  • +/-1 Strength

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 are only affected by their own blessings in their own dominion, including otherwise Innate blessings such as Water Breathing, Recuperation, or Half Dead.

Death and Recall

For the vast majority of nations and Pretenders, death results in the potential loss of one level of a magic path to a limit of 0, biased towards losing Nature, or the loss of a point of Dominion, to a base level of 1.

There is also a small chance for a pretender to gain either one level of Death, Astral, or Blood magic on recall, in addition to any other effects.

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. Priests with an Elegist bonus, or working with a claimed Throne of the Pantokrator receive additional priest levels for this purpose.

A Pretender God that is recalled will appear outside the walls of the Fort of its own capital if it is under siege, regardless of its level of mobility.

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.

If a Pretender God has been polymorphed or transformed into a form which would not allow it to return without dying, such as an Aquatic shape for a land nation, or a non-water breathing shape for an underwater nation, it will return in its original shape.

Trinities

Trinity chassis suffer these same risks, including permanent dominion loss even from the non-primary Trinity member, and require around 50% more candles to bring them back to life.

Exceptions

Immortality

Immortal Pretender Gods without the Soul Slayed or Soul Annihilated afflictions do not lose magic or dominion score upon their return.

If Soul Slayed or Soul Annihilated, or a Dominion Immortal pretender who died outside of their dominion at the point of death, they are treated as normal Gods and must be recalled.

Twiceborn

Pretender Gods with the Twiceborn status do not suffer any risk to lose magic or dominion score upon their return. Additionally, if their Twiceborn shape has any attunement bonus, they may gain magic paths on returning to life.

[[Ur]] and [[Uruk]]

These nations' Pretender Gods are unaffected by death in terms of their base magic and dominion level.

Custom Priest Spells

If a solitary Pretender God has any Path above level 4, the Banish and Smite spells for the nation's priests will change. These spells are set at Pretender Creation, and cannot be changed either by empowerment or the loss of magic paths.

Assuming equal levels of magical ability between paths, their priority is decided by the standard order of paths, with Fire first and Blood last.

MA Ermor and LA Lemuria do not gain these spells.

Trinities

For Trinity Pretender Gods, the paths on the first member to spawn dictate whether, and how, Banish 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 God.

Trinity Specifics

For the base game's Gods, 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 to Death and -2 to all other paths in terms of deciding Custom Priest Spells.

The Morrigna has -1 to Death and -2 to all other paths in terms of deciding Custom Priest Spells.

See Also

pretenders.1581470040.txt.gz · Last modified: 2020/02/12 01:14 by timotej