Hey all!
Wanted to show y'all a cool part of this game that hasn't really gotten a lot of daylight yet.
The 2D/Deck style for Dungeon-type confrontations and mysteries is up and running in a primitive fashion now and can be fully completed. Since that was in an up and running state I decided I'd get the Ritual phase up and going too. Up until now the only place you could find anything about the Ritual phase of the game was in my notes. No longer!
Diving into Rites and Rituals
Stages of To Ash and Ember's main gameloop:
World Distortion -> Home Base -> Mystery -> Investigation -> Confrontation -> Ritual -> God Confrontation / World Distortion
The Ritual Phase
So, you've gotten into a game of To Ash and Ember and you've solved a Mystery. Great! Though this helps save the City from the distortions of the world, it does not stop the slowly ticking clock of the God's coming resurrection. Eventually, by either your choice or by force you will have to confront the slaughtered god whose rise threatens the fabric of the world.
To accomplish this, your Investigator will encounter Clues and Evidence about the Resurrecting God. After you've dealt with a Mystery, you can take advantage of the time before something new and twisted happens to this city to focus on your ultimate goals. With the Ritual phase, you'll finally be able to use your gathered Evidence to prosecute your secret war against the Slaughtered Gods. These Gods must be driven back into the Veil and, though sanctioned by no church, it falls to you to perform the height of blasphemy: a deific exorcism.
Exorcising a God, even a Slaughtered one, is no simple task. Further, the Resurrecting God won't be working on their own. Another God is assisting their return to the world and yet another is trying to keep them from emerging. Deducing the identity of the Resurrecting God will be key to your success in banishing them. Making mistakes here will cost you as the God will arrive empowered or even ahead-of-schedule but a whip-smart and well-prepared Investigator might be able to banish a God before they even get one rotting toe into the mortal world.
To get their identity, you'll be using the Evidence you found in your Investigations to pick up what sorts of divine energies are around and who they belong to. How risky and/or brave you'd like to be in confronting the Slaughtered God is up to you; is 50/50 good enough odds to assault the domain of a fallen deity? You can even employ the services of a mystic Ensorceler to pull the activities of the deity you're after out from the Weave of Fate -- but at a terrible cost.
Hunting a Slaughtered God
Once you've chosen your prey, you'll start gearing up for them. There's three things you can prepare against a Deity: the Banishing Rite, a Binding Ritual, and an Anathema.
- The Banishing Rite is key to your long-term strategies -- without it the God may be more quickly resurrected in the future even if defeated -- but it is particular to each deity and won't work unless you've given it the right target.
- The Binding Ritual evens the already hellish and herculean odds of fighting a God. If correctly prepared, you can prevent divine energies from entering a Location you suspect the God will resurrect in. Doing so will prevent Gods from using their Portfolios while you fight them, making them fight you on even grounds rather than as hellish narrators who can bend Reality to their whims. These rituals, however, are costly, hard-to-find, and require precise materials to create.
- Finally, you can prepare an Anathema. Anathemae are to Gods as Sunlight is to Vampires of mythology -- effulgent and painful focuses which strike terror into their hearts and burn their deific energy. An Anathema, though expensive, one-time-use, and difficult to find recipes for, allows you to seal a God's actions and choose one Skill they have and forbid them from using it for a number of turns from the start of the battle. For some gods, an Anathema may be the difference between a short slaughter and a long, grueling, and horrific end.
More to come...
Just wanted to keep you up-to-date as I continue to get To Ash and Ember ready for a hopeful coming-soon Early Access before June hits. I'll be posting more news as I finish up and investigate the game's major systems.
Thanks, again, for your attentions and be sure to share this game around if you're liking what you're seeing.