Draft:Rampart Pantheon
The Rampart Pantheon is the group of temples and altars in northwestern Rampart. It lets a character begin religious devotion and return to a patron's altar without travelling to the main temples in the countryside.
| Location | City travel name | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Northwestern Rampart, north of the hospice | temple | Known from the start; open at all hours |
Layout and first worship
M temple brings you to the Pantheon's portico. Walk north inside to reach the altars; the portico itself does not offer a priesthood menu. In the southern pair, Set is west and Athena east. Farther north, Odin is west, Destiny is in the middle and Hecate east. These are rooms within the city, not entrances to separate countryside temple maps.
Step onto the altar and agree to worship. If you have no priesthood, the deity checks whether to accept you:
| Deity | Altar description | Initial alignment requirement | Initial spell |
|---|---|---|---|
| Odin | Granite, graven with a gallows | Positive | Magic missile |
| Set | Sandstone, marked with a black hand | Negative | Invisibility |
| Athena | Gold, inscribed with an owl | Positive | Identification |
| Hecate | Silver, inlaid with a black crescent moon | Negative | Energy drain |
| Lords of Destiny | Crystal, shaped like an omega | None | None |
Acceptance by Odin, Set, Athena or Hecate also increases current and maximum Power by one. Destiny gives neither an entry spell nor that initial Power increase. There is no Druid altar in this Pantheon; a neutral character does not have to choose Destiny merely because the city's other altars require an alignment change.
Returning to an altar
At your own patron's altar, p prays and checks priestly advancement. The first three promotions require 400, 1,500 and 4,000 priesthood experience, with suitable alignment. Ordinary prayer is not a guaranteed healing service. High-priest advancement additionally requires exceeding the incumbent's recorded character level and bringing the required holy symbol. Major temples are a source of those symbols, but a symbol obtained from another encounter also qualifies; killing the incumbent is not required. The high-priest guide explains the individual quests, unsafe use of stolen symbols and changes to temple inhabitants after promotion.
s offers an item as a sacrifice. A qualifying offering must have actual value greater than 50 times your priestly rank cubed, where Lay is rank 1, Acolyte 2, Priest 3, Senior Priest 4 and High Priest 5. The offering consumes one item and makes a blessing available. An inadequate offering can instead curse the item. Choose the offering before entering this menu: cancelling the item selection can be treated as an insulting empty offering and lead to divine punishment, rather than returning harmlessly to the altar menu.
b requests the available blessing. A successful request grants experience, cures poison and disease, removes curses from equipment currently in use, heals, and offers an additional blessing of a selected item. The availability is then consumed. Asking without an available blessing instead loses a quarter of your current experience. The altar announces a "sense of immanence" when the blessing is available.
An additional selected-item blessing is not safe for every deeply cursed spare item: some curses resist it and some such items can be destroyed. The removal of curses from equipment already in use occurs separately, before that selection.
Worshipping at another deity's altar can cost Power and invoke severe punishment. Even the friendly Odin/Athena and Set/Hecate pairings do not make experimentation entirely free. Return to the correct altar rather than treating the five as interchangeable services.
Strategy
The nearby hospice can turn a neutral start slightly Lawful for just 1 Au. That gives access to Odin or Athena and also meets the entry alignment for the Order. Religious devotion and a martial guild can coexist, but experience is divided between memberships that use guild experience, slowing their separate promotions.
Choose a patron for its longer-term benefits and obligations. An entry spell is knowledge, not a promise that you have enough mana to cast it immediately. Destiny's easy admission is particularly poor evidence that it is the strongest beginner option.
For predictable paid injury or disease treatment, the healer is simpler than experimenting with sacrifices. A correctly prepared altar blessing can solve more problems, including worn curses, but requires the right patron, offering and blessing availability.