Mammon, the incarnation of humanity's greed and self-destruction, arrives in V0.9. Spreading across the lands via trade routes, he grows by feasting on his own followers and on the sins of humanity, rather than growing over time like previous Elder Gods. He exists within The Mountain, a place of extraordinary wealth, the allure of which grants him his strength. He must avoid heroes raiding it, as if they take his wealth he will lose his power to enrapture with the promises of riches.
Mammon will be an ongoing project for the next few versions, as indeed will other gods, as the various new mechanics get balanced against each other, and as the UI gets polished up. Consequently, V0.9 introduced some new improvements to Iastur, and to madness in general, hopefully making them more capable of exciting emergent gameplay and game narrative. New UI views and some polish to existing UI should also help out with making sense of the game's world.
The Alliance also gains some new capabilities, helped out by the Chosen One. Conclaves are ways for the Chosen One to rally the international community, and grant powerful advantages to humanity, in its fight against you. Grudges can be settled, plagues cured and militaries rallied, if the conclave succeeds. Against this political threat, you can disrupt politically, or attack directly, assassinating key individuals or assaulting the Chosen One to force them to stop their task.
In detail:
Gameplay:
-Iastur's end game changed. Now has 'Waves of Madness' at the Elder Tomb, a channelled power which causes insanity with each successful cast
-Iastur can add arcane fortress to the Elder Tomb, but power regen can make this a difficult choice
-Iastur only regenerates power when the tome is in a human settlement now
-Iastur now regenerates power at 33% speed, rather than 0%, when the tome is not deployed
-Heroes can no longer harm Iastur's soul. The Chosen One and heroes both have their own assigned win-game quest at the Elder Tomb, which serve well enough now that magic channelling exists
-If the Laughing Tome is held too long by heroes it automatically drops and is re-usable, without harming Iastur (prevents heroes getting distracted while carrying it)
-'Political Gridlock' challenge can now be performed even if the current location is experiencing political gridlock, allowing infinite chaining
-Monarch now gains "Make an Example" unique challenge, allowing her to execute a noble to reduce unrest and political agitation
-Orc Buccaneer added, able to raid trade routes at sea. Requires an orc shipyard, and is designed to harvest gold to feed to orc hordes and command them in battle, with traits which reduce her risk of attack while at high-menace
-Trickster's minion, Mister Edgar, can now steal items if the Trickster retreats from combat (or if their opponent does), and can retreat during the 'flee' phase
-Heroes have an aversion to acting in locations where they would take damage from an army due to their high menace and profile
-Possession menace gain doubled, 10 -> 20
-Relatives of possessed characters have a chance to hate the blood mage performing the ritual
-Blood magic warlocks will start with one arcane secret
-Insanity expanded. Effects are now more complex, to improve emergent gameplay, and support Iastur and future sources insanity. (partially complete, ongoing beta-branch project)
-Heroes now won't try to get another manticore trophy after their first one
-The Baroness' 'Command of Vermin' trait now gives one vermin every fifth turn, rather than up to 3 at the start of combat
-Manticores now don't die if the location they are in is destroyed
-The Dark Empire and Ophanim Theocracies allow your agents to take/give to nobles freely, by setting the "rob treasury" challenge to a 0/0/1 menace/profile/complexity challenge
-The First Daughter now requires a standard challenge on a human soul, replacing previous event-based trigger system
-Human armies will attempt to avoid over-committing, by avoiding engaging enemies which are already under attack by sufficient other human armies
-Human armies will remain at base if enough of the nation's military has been deployed against a lesser foe, allowing some to remain as defensive reserves
-Human geomancy can now be performed by agents (nurture and bountiful harvest)
-Vinerva Choking Spores slowly decay over time
-Human nations will gain motivation to perform a 'war on threat' against a nearby nation which has high-menace points of interest in one or more of its settlements
-Human Armies will now target high-menace locations during raid on threat wars, if they are not from the Dark Empire or an Ophanim Theocracy
-Heroes won't consider guarding other heroes from nations they are at war with
-The Chosen One can now called 'conclaves' which allows various rulers and heroes to support a collective action, to gain humanity an advantage in the face of their common foe
-Agents can now remove bandits
-Agents can now fund outposts, of either the Dark Empire or another nation if their menace is low
-Holy Sites now have a chance to have catacombs beneath them, which will accumulate the death from neighbouring locations
-The Alliance will automatically start an outpost when it razes a location
-Infamous now requires 20 menace and profile to become available
-Human settlements falling should have better feedback as to why they fell, as well as adding better info to the ruler death message
-Arcane secrets can now be given a 'dangerous knowledge' feature, which will cause them to cause sanity damage to any hero using them
-The CO will far more aggressively seek to fulfil the prophecy towards the game's end
-Plague spread nerfed slightly, population loss reduced when <100%
-Orcs will be less enthusiastic about attacking armies far away, especially refugees
-Orcs can now plunder from human settlements. This will take some gold back and place it in a 'orc plunder' modifier for your agents to draw from (if infiltrated). Heroes can raid this plunder for their own gain
-Iastur's "Just a game" sanity damage goes from 7 to 14
-Mammon's armoured populace now generates seal-breaking points for Mammon while they fight and raze
-Humans who die under The Hunger can now be returned to life as a full Vampire, who will automatically spread shadow. Vampires feeding will often cause The Hunger in a hero or ruler, who might then one day also become a vampire
-'Access Cache' challenge now gives a description of the contents of the cache
-Ghasts' enshadow is now blocked by wards, and they will avoid trying to enshadow a warded location
-Iastur's "waves of madness" tomb challenge no longer affects Ghasts, Deep Ones and Orcs
-After the game is won/lost, the heroes can no longer perform the win the game quests, and the CO can gain shadow and menace
-Heroes with The Hunger will now have a bias towards avoiding feeding in high-shadow areas, unless their hunger is high
-Trickster unique abilities reduced in menace
-Plague growth speed now scales with difficulty
Other:
-The Mountain no longer has status effects on the map, to allow its unique art to be seen
-If you dismiss a message type, it will not show other messages of that same type which were generated in the same turn
-The game options screen now lets you return to the main menu
-Added 'House' map view
-Added 'Shadow' map view
-Added 'Ruler Shadow' map view
-Modifier view now alphabetically sorted
Bugfixes:
-Iastur's personality manipulation powers now work on rulers, as the tooltip said
-Fixed possession being usable on the Chosen One
-Fixed the "Fascination" location madness outcome to prevent it from giving infinite power
-The Chosen One won't have a motivation to attack heroes from the "at war" or "international relations" cause if their home is a dark empire or ophanim nation
-If The Alliance is turned into a Dark Empire it will cease to be The Alliance
-Fixed bug where two deep one cults could be created in the same location
-Orc upstarts now die if their society is destroyed
-Fixed bug where enshadowed rulers could order attacks on high-menace armies
-Fixed bug in which tasks were being considered 'claimed' by an agent who was off doing something else
-Fixed Portable Skeleton Item not being consumed
-Fixed issue with hero location for personal ability (such as Feed) being incorrectly set