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# Cult 2021
## Abstract
In its current form, cult relies almost entirely upon its own exclusive mechanics, requiring very little interaction with the station and its equipment in most circumstances. Furthermore, as a conversion antagonist with access to some of the robust equipment of any antagonist, it tends to snowball out of control, often to the point where one of the only options left to the crew is maxcapping the cult when they attempt to summon.
Cult also suffers problems with forcing round-removal, as any crew member that gets mindshielded can just be sacrificed to create a construct, which, due to converting them into an explicitly valid simplemob, is often close to, if not outright, a round removal. Perhaps less importantly, any given cult round has nearly the exact same gameplay loop, with little room for variation in the cult's approach.
The reworked cult attempts to provide a flexible, non-conversion-based team antagonist that appropriates station equipment for their own purposes. Their goal does not force a round-ending event that unequivocally screws over any other antagonists present on the station.
## Goals
1. Incentivize developing familiarity with station mechanics. Many of the cult's mechanics are tied to or related to station mechanics in one way or another. The following are a few examples:
- Soul energy charge is primarily tied to reagents, and can thus be interacted with using plumbing. In addition to normal plumbing equipment, the cult can also produce a filter that separates uncharged reagents from charged reagents.
- Some [Ultimate Pylons](#Ultimate-Ritual) will require a significant amount of plasma gas of power, providing players a reason to interact with atmospherics piping and power cables, respectively.
2. Have accessible and understandable mechanics. For example:
- The [Infusion](#Infusion) rune uses a UI akin to a combination of the tablecrafting UI and the exosuit fabricator UI.
- The most complicated mechanics have readily accessible guides built into their UIs. For instance, the [Runecrafting](#Runecrafting) UI has both a runecrafting tutorial and a guide to what requirements have to be fulfilled for each type of rune.
3. Remove one type of conversion antagonist from the game. Conversion can be severely disruptive to non-antags, often requiring them to stop whatever they are doing to contribute to the team they find themselves a part of. This is especially egregious in the case of cult in its current form, as a cult that reaches the ascendant state more or less turns the round into team deathmatch. In the cult rework, there are a set number of cultists at the start of the round, and no way to convert others to the cult. To account for the growth in non-cultists, above a certain ratio of non-cultists to cultists, a latejoiner with a compatible job and the cultist role enabled in their prefs is made a cultist before any other latejoiner antagonist checks have a chance to be performed.
4. Add tension to a round without the threat of the round immediately ending. Like with heretics, the cult's end goal does not inherently end the round. Certain end goals result in catastrophes that warrant a shuttle call, while others fundamentally disrupt the station's command structure. Even summoning Nar'Sie herself, which is a rare occurrence, is no longer a round-ending event - her presence is simply a crisis that can kill players in a manner that does not necessarily amount to round-removal.
5. Give the crew the potential to turn the cult's equipment against them. Like with illegal tech and alien tech, there is a variety of eldritch tech that can be acquired by analyzing cult items in the destructive analyser.
6. Maintain the core identity of cult as an antagonist focused around blood, dark rituals, and fulfilling the will of their wicked god, while supplementing that core identity with geometry - a term that is referenced in Nar'Sie's title as the Geometer of Blood. [Runecrafting](#Runecrafting) and [pylon placement](#Pylon-Targeting) ([Ultimate](#Ultimate-Ritual) and non-Ultimate alike) involve making geometric inferences to do optimally.
## Non-Goals
1. Incentivize round-removal as a cultist. Only one necessary element of cult progression has the potential to require killing a player in order to capture their soul in a shard. In the absolute worst-case scenario, three players at maximum have to be killed and sharded. Not only that, but there is a way to be recovered from sharding. Sharding someone does not dust their body - it only destroys their brain. Furthermore, any soul shard receptacle, such as [constructs](#Constructs), [ultimate pylons](#Ultimate-Ritual), and [basins](#Blood-Basin), will drop debris on destruction. This debris can be scanned in the destructive analyzer to unlock the blueprints for a [cybernetic brain](#Reverse-Engineered-Items) that accepts filled soul shards.
2. Incentivize round-removal as security. While there is no way to deconvert the cultists, there are ways to control or even neutralize their activity. An unequipped cultist in perma has no way to escape on their own outside of those available to anyone else. The closest thing the cult has to a cult-specific way to break an imprisoned cultist out is via the [Gateway](#Gateway) rune, which not only has to have its pylons correctly aligned to connect to perma, but also produces a bidirectional portal that can be exploited by anyone else that happens to be nearby.
3. Incentivize using cult items for everything. Most of the cult items are either reskins or sidegrades to existing station equipment, meant to be produced only if the normal variant is unavailable. These cult items are visually obvious, and should be hidden somewhere if the cultist carrying them hasn't yet blown their cover and doesn't intend to do so. Cult items that are unlike several items already in the game are not supposed to be more powerful than what can be acquired through non-antagonistic means.
4. Make being sharded a form of GBJ. Sharded players can freely leave and re-enter their body as if they were extracted brains.
5. Incentivize construct armies. Filled soul shards are not loyal to the cult, and do not control the constructs they are put in. Construct shells are offered to ghosts when awakened either with the rune or with a shard, thus they have the same restrictions to their utility as golems or sentience potion mobs. Furthermore, it may be preferable to use a soul shard as a power source rather than for a construct.
## Content
This header exists because there's a significant amount of content to go through, and it helps with organization.
### Soul Energy
Sapient souls collect a form of cosmic energy, which then leaches into the fluid that constitutes their circulatory system. This energy is used by the cult as a power source for their runes and other items. Cultists can innately tell how much soul energy is contained within the contents of a reagent container. Sapient mobs spawn with their blood fully charged with soul energy. As a mob regenerates blood, the generated blood is not fully charged with soul energy. Each second, sapient mobs regenerate a small amount of soul energy, up to the volume of blood in their body. Soul energy will diffuse evenly across all the reagents in a given container. Anything that consumes soul energy will attempt to do so from any nearby reagent containers. Consuming soul energy does not consume the reagents that contain it, but consuming reagents will waste the soul energy they contain. The behavior of soul energy within reagent containers is intended to fit with goal #1, while its use is intended to fit with goal #6.
### Runecrafting
Runes work fundamentally differently. Instead of picking a rune to place down from a list, cultists can view instructions on how to construct each type of rune that is available to them.
Runecrafting starts by making a blank rune on the floor using reagents. Blank runes can be drawn with a 1, 2, or 3 tile diameter, each referred to as small, medium, and large in rune descriptions. Each size of rune requires proportionally more reagents to draw. Inscription tracks are used to define the function of the rune. Drawing these inscription tracks requires an amount of reagents proportional to their length.
When right-clicking on a rune, a UI will appear allowing you to draw polygons made of inscription tracks by clicking points on the circle. This UI will also show helpful information such as the total length of the inscription tracks, the angle between two inscription tracks, and the area of completed polygons, in order to contribute to goal #2.
The instructions for each ritual describe the size of rune required and how the inscription tracks must be placed. The size of the rune required for a ritual remains consistent between rounds, but the inscription track arrangement differ from round to round. Below is an example description:
> The example ritual requires a small rune inscribed with an equilateral triangle. For reference, all three angles of an equilateral triangle are 60 degrees.
>
Rune inscription requirements serve to augment the core identity of the cult in line with goal #6.
The soul energy charge of the reagents used to draw the rune affects how well it works. Below the critical charge level, the rune has a chance to fizzle out. The lower the level, the higher the chance to fizzle out, capping at a 100% chance at less than half the critical level. Drawing a rune with a charge above the critical level has no benefit.
#### Pylons
Some runes also require [pylons](#pylons), either as part of their structure or to designate the tile targeted by a ritual. Blank runes have an inner and outer perimiter around which pylons can be placed. The outer perimiter is 100% the radius of the rune, while the inner perimiter is 90% the radius of the rune. In the runecrafting UI, you can place up to three pylons on a rune.
#### Pylon Targeting
Some rituals target a specific tile. The tile targeted by a ritual is the tile closest to the center of the circle that passes through the three pylons on the rune. There are three degenerate cases for pylon targeting, each with special behavior:
- If a targeting ritual's rune only has one pylon around it, it will target a random tile on the z-level each time it is used.
- If a targeting ritual's rune only has two pylons around it, it will target a random tile along the perpendicular bisector of the line between the two pylons.
- If all three pylons on a targeting ritual's rune are colinear, the rune will have no effect as it attempts to target a point infinitely far away.
Pylon placement and the mechanics surrounding it serve to augment the core identity of the cult in line with goal #6.
### Rituals
#### Infusion
The Infusion ritual is the means by which the cult produces most of their unique items. See [Cult Items](#Cult-Items) for more information. Infusions consume a variable quantity of soul energy, depending on what is being crafted. Infusions will consume soul energy before consuming any other ingredients.
#### Gateway
The Gateway ritual is similar to a launchpad. Unlike a launchpad, Gateway creates a bidirectional portal between itself and the target tile, just like the hand tele. Each use of the rune toggles the portal. Adding, removing, or moving one of the rune's pylons while the portal is open forces it closed. The gateway consumes soul energy proportional to the distance between itself and the destination, both at the moment of activation, and each tick it remains active.
#### Awaken Construct
The Awaken Construct ritual is activated by placing an inert construct shell on the rune. When activated, the shell will be offered to ghosts. Each Awaken Construct rune can only have one active construct bound to it at a time. The bound construct must remain in range of the rune, or else it will gradually lose power before becoming immobile until moved back in range. If the bound construct is destroyed, its destruction will create a backlash that damages the rune it is bound to, rendering said rune unusable until the cult cleans off the damaged inscription tracks and draws new ones. Powering a construct consumes soul energy for each tick the construct is within range.
#### Aetherial Fog
While active, the Aetherial Fog ritual produces a colorless gas called Mire that is opaque to radio waves. Starting at a low but not neglegible concentration, Mire jams radio signals. Mire does not show up on any atmos equipment interfaces, and can only be detected through anomalies in airmix readouts - specifically, the fact that the sum of all listed gas concentrations does not equal 100%. The ritual can use pylon targeting to target a different tile on which to produce the Mire, but this is optional. As a fun bonus, Mire also stops the supermatter from sending out integrity alerts, in case you want to stealthily delaminate it without completely cutting comms. The Aethereal Fog ritual consumes a small amount of soul energy each tick.
#### Relay
The Relay ritual allows soul-energy-consuming rituals near the rune to consume soul energy from containers near the targeted turf, and vice-versa. The relay needs to consume an amount of soul energy equal to a small percentage of the soul energy it transmits. The relay rune does not need to be activated - it runs passively once it has been properly set up.
#### Ultimate Ritual Pylon
Ultimate Ritual Pylons are used in the preparation of the [Ultimate Ritual](#Ultimate-Ritual). The rune summons the Ultimate Ritual Pylon, which is very durable, in order to prevent easy destruction. See the linked section for more details.
### Malformed Runes
If the inscription tracks on a rune do not closely meet the requirements for any ritual, that rune is considered to be malformed. Malformed runes can perform one of several random effects, ranging from harmless to dangerous. Malformed runes provide an incentive for cultists to not wildly guess correct inscription arrangements for runes. Common malformed rune effects include:
- Blood foam pours out from the rune
- Blood smoke eminates from the rune
- Crimson sparkles shine in a large area around the rune
- A flashbang goes off at the rune's location. This flashbang will sometimes be hypnotic.
- A storm of blood needles is launched from the rune. This acts like a stingbang, but with slightly less damage.
- A large pulse of radiation is released from the rune
- A wave of crimson fire bursts forth from the rune
- The rune spawns a weak, malformed construct, which attacks anyone and anything, including cultists, but otherwise follows the same rules as any other rune-activated construct
Any given incorrect arrangement of inscriptions will produce the same malformed rune effect every time that round.
Malformed runes can also have rare effects, which can only result from a single arrangement of inscriptions (and sufficiently similar arrangements). Here are some possible rare malformed rune effects:
#### Blight
A corruptive wave eminates from the rune, converting floors, walls, and airlocks to their cult variants. Anyone unlucky enough to be caught in a blight wave becomes covered in runed-metal growths, forcing them to shamble towards uncorrupted individuals and lash out at them (like the spasm trauma on meth). This can be cured with organ manipulation surgery.
#### Blood Puppy
This vicious yet adorable sanguine blob will follow cultists around, and behaves just like a dog. It can fetch items and attack mobs. However, after attacking enough mobs, it will enter a blood rage, attacking anything and everything, including the cultists that summoned it. Dealing a large amount of damage to it while it is in a blood rage will calm it down, but while it is friendly, it will retaliate against all attackers, so don't beat it too much. Yes, this is literally the item from Isaac.
### Cult Items
#### Runed Metal
Runed metal is made by infusing regular metal and blood. Multiple sheets can be made with a single use of the Infusion ritual.
#### Pylons
Pylons are used in the creation of some runes. See [Pylon Targeting](#Pylon-Targeting) for more details. They are crafted with runed metal and blood.
#### Geoscope
The geoscope is a useful item that lets you see what tile a targeting ritual will target, and the range of rituals with an AOE. It will also show you where you can place the runes for an [Ultimate Ritual](#Ultimate-Ritual). It's entire purpose is to assist in the fulfillment of goal #2. They can be concealed by adding them to any form of eyewear. They are crafted with any hud eyewear and some blood.
#### Ritual Alignment Console
Once a console is constructed using the produced board and linked to a targeting rune, the Ritual Alignment console allows for the precise selection of the rune's target tile. Be warned that this can allow the crew to utilize the linked rune for themselves, if they can get around the interface's text being illegible to non-cultists. The functionality of the ritual alignment console contributes both to goals #2 and #5. It is crafted with a Bluespace Launchpad Control console board and a moderate amount of blood.
#### Soul Shards
The cult's soul shards work differently from other shards. Capturing a soul with a cult shard does not make them loyal to the cult, nor does it dust their body - only their brain is dusted. This change is intended to avoid non-goal #1. Furthermore, the souls contained within cult shards are not shades, and cannot be released. Instead of solely being used for constructs, filled cult shards provide a constant supply of soul energy equivalent to several times that produced by living mobs. The soul energy produced is distributed to all nearby soul-energy-consuming rituals and items. This degree of utility offered by soul shards helps to avoid non-goal #5. The player inside the soul shard can freely enter and exit the shard so that they can at least observe the round if they aren't in a position to do anything, avoiding non-goal #4. Even if the player within the shard ghosts, DNRs, or takes a ghost role, the shard will continue to produce power. Soul shards are crafted with a glass shard and a large amount of soul energy.
#### Soul Shiv
It's literally just a shiv made by wrapping one end of a soul shard with cloth. It does the same damage as a shiv, but also captures the victim's soul if you attack them in the head while they are dead or in hardcrit. Once filled with a soul, the cloth can be removed from the shiv with a right-click, allowing the filled soul shard to be used. It has no combat advantages in order to avoid non-goal #3.
#### Soul Spear
It's literally just a spear made using a soul shard instead of a regular glass shard. It does the same damage as a spear, but also captures the victim's soul if you attack them in the head while they are dead or in hardcrit. Once filled with a soul, the shard can be removed with right-click, allowing the shard to be used and the wired rod to be reused. It has no combat advantages in order to avoid non-goal #3.
#### Shardcaster
The shardcaster is a gun that uses specially-shaped soul shards as ammunition. These shards can be crafted by carving regular shards with a knife. The shardcaster can hold a few shots, each dealing a small amount of brute with an extreme chance to embed. Embedded shots don't deal much damage each pain tick, but they do slow down the victim through mood debuffs. Shots embedded in the head also deal a small amount of brain damage each each tick. Shots that hit a dense object or fail to embed will fall to the ground as deformed soul shards, which function like regular non-ammo shards. If a person dies while they have a shardcaster shot embedded in their head, that shot will capture their soul and drop to the ground as a filled soul shard. The shardcaster is crafted with any ballistic gun, a large amount of soul energy, and an even larger amount of blood. The extreme crafting cost and less-than-ideal combat effectiveness is intended to avoid non-goals #1 and #3.
#### Blood Basin
The blood basin is a structure menu-crafted from runed metal. It can hold a large volume of blood (or any reagent, really). A filled soul shard can be placed in a blood basin in order to infuse the reagents within it with soul energy using the energy produced by the shard.
### Constructs
Constructs will also be reworked for cult, but remain unchanged when produced by other means. Each type of construct has its own recipe at the infusion ritual, but the primary ingredient for all of them is varying amounts of runed metal. The shell can then be activated in one of two ways: Place it on the [Awaken Construct](#Awaken-Construct) ritual, or install a filled soul shard. Like with the Awaken Construct ritual, installing a filled soul shard offers the construct to ghosts. A shard-powered construct has no range limitations, but the soul inside the shard can interfere with it by occasionally hijacking its movements and attacks, in part to prevent non-goal #5. When a shard-powered construct is destroyed, the shard within it drops to the ground, allowing the crew to retrieve the soul inside.
### Ultimate Ritual
The cult's end goal is conduct an Ultimate Ritual. Which ritual the cult must activate differs from round to round. To prepare the Ultimate Ritual, the cult must construct three Ultimate Ritual Pylons (henceforth referred to as Pylons with a capital P) on the station, arranged in a manner specific to the Ultimate Ritual that must be performed.
Upon the successful construction of a Pylon, the cult is given an objective describing what item is needed to activate it. Most of these objectives contribute to goal #1. A Pylon can ask for one of the following:
- A soul shard containing the soul of a specific crew member (usually security or the chaplain)
- A large quantity of plasma gas. A Pylon that requires plasma acts as an atmos machine and has a reskinned RPD attached to it, allowing the cult to connect the Pylon to a source of plasma. This RPD will snap back to the Pylon if it is carried too far away.
- Lots of power. A Pylon that requires power will act as a power sink, draining power from the wires until its power needs are fulfilled.
- A supermatter sliver. A Pylon that requires a sliver can vend a reskinned sliver extraction kit once every few minutes, so that the cult actually has the means to acquire a sliver. If there is no supermatter, or the Pylon has not been activated after a few minutes, the rune can be reactivated to reroll the objective.
- The nuke core. A Pylon that requires the nuke core can vend a thin-tipped cult screwdriver once every few minutes, so that the cult actually has the means to extract the core. If the Pylon has not been activated after a few minutes, the rune can be reactivated to reroll the objective.
When the Ultimate Ritual is finally performed, corruption will spread out from around the Pylons (via calling `narsie_act()` on those turfs). This corruption will eventually spread to the entire station if the round continues for long enough after that. Cultists rapidly heal while standing in corruption, similar to ascended rust heretics.
Below are some possible Ultimate Rituals, each of which contributes to goal #4.
#### Manifold Collapse
Manifold Collapse produces a singularity at its centroid (the center of the circle passing through all three Pylons). This ritual does not require its pylons to be located anywhere specific, but for the best results, try to get the centroid near the supermatter, and far away from the Pylons. Manifold Collapse will not end the round on its own, but the crew is practically guaranteed to call the shuttle - after all, IT'S LOOSE.
#### Chaos Theory
Chaos Theory produces a tesla-like anomaly at its centroid. Instead of shocking everything around it as it teleports, it eminates [Blight](#Blight) shockwaves at several random points around itself. Like Manifold Collapse, the Pylons can be placed anywhere, but the centroid should probably be positioned far away from the cultists, as the anomaly differentiates not between friend or foe.
#### The Long March
The Long March subverts all of the station's systems, granting the cult total access while denying access to the crew. Any machine that requires access to use can only be used by the cult. Airlocks will continue to allow access as normal, with the sole exception that cultists are always granted access.
If, for some reason, there is an ongoing revolution when The Long March is performed, the revolutionaries will be given an objective to kill the cultists (in addition to the heads of staff); additionally, any revolutionary cultists will lose their revolutionary status. If the nuke core was not used in one of the Pylons, the highest-ranking living non-cultist will be given a paper listing the nuke codes, though it is up to them as to whether or not they will attempt to nuke the station.
The shuttle can be called if the cult deems it necessary, but it will not dock at Centcom - it will remain in hyperspace. However, the escape pods will make it to the recovery ship. The centroid for The Long March must be located on the same tile as a comms console or functioning AI core.
#### I Am Legion
I Am Legion creates a never-ending portal storm of AI-controlled constructs, which are hostile to everyone except the cult. The storm starts out very slow, but ramps up very slowly. The crew may be able to fend off the first few waves, but the continuing onslaught, combined with the heavily-buffed cultists and any other events that occur during the round, will eventually force the crew to call the shuttle. The circle that passes through the Pylons for I Am Legion must encompass at least half of the station, and at least half of said circle must contain turfs on the station.
#### Apophis
Apophis extinguishes the local star, feeding all of its present and future energy to the Geometer of Blood. This ritual renders solars and Starlight Condensation practically useless, though if it is any consolation, Nocturnal Regen is greatly benefitted. Additionally, Apophis destroys most light sources on the station, casting it into near-complete darkness. The Pylons for Apophis must be placed very far away from each other, but otherwise, their positioning doesn't matter.
#### Locus of Dominion
Locus of Dominion is an optional Ultimate Ritual the cult can perform instead of The Long March or Apophis. In order to perform Locus of Dominion, the conditions for both The Long March and Apophis must be met. While the geoscope will show the cult the valid Pylon locations for their objective, they must figure out how to place the Pylons to also fulfill the requirements for the other Ultimate Ritual. Locus of Dominion is the new way for the cult to summon Nar'Sie. She will appear at the centroid for the ritual and unleash a corruptive wave like the ones produced by the Pylons, but larger. The effect of The Long March will trigger, and after two minutes have elapsed, so will the effect of Apophis. Once this has occured, Nar'Sie will retreat into the background, where she is visible on the parallax layer, but otherwise has no further effects on the round.
### Nar'Sie
Nar'Sie's behavior is significantly different from earlier versions of cult. First off, she no longer turns the entire cult into harvesters on summon, contributing to goal #4.
Instead of gibbing people and turning them into harvesters, Nar'Sie instead inflicts [Blight](#Blight). If the victim dies while they have any growths directly inflicted by her, they will be sharded and trapped in an AI-controlled harvester. Like with other constructs, the victim can force the harvester's movements and attacks by struggling. If a harvester is destroyed, it will not only drop the shard containing the victim's soul, but also the victim's limbs and organs. This altered behavior contributes to goal #4 while avoiding non-goal #1.
While she is active, Nar'Sie spawns several AI-controlled constructs around herself every few seconds. Each time she does this, a player-controlled construct slot opens up, allowing a ghost to spawn in as a random non-harvester construct.
### Counterplay
#### Holy Water
Holy water no longer deconverts cultists, since they are no longer conversion antags. To make up for this removal of functionality, holy water melts through cult items faster than even nitric acid.
### Reverse Engineering
If the crew gets their hands on certain cult items, they can be placed in the Destructive Analyzer to gain hidden tech nodes that allow for the production of reverse-engineered and unique items, contributing to goal #5.
### Reverse-Engineered Items
- Neuropsychic Interface
The Neuropsychic Interface (NPI) is a cybernetic brain that can be printed in the medical lathe and the exosuit fabricator after reverse-engineering a soul shard. Once fitted with a filled soul shard, the NPI can be inserted into a body. This is the station's primary way of reviving sharded crew members, thus helping to prevent non-goal #1.
- Nar'sien Emplacement Control
The Nar'sien Emplacement Control console is identical to the Ritual Alignment console, only without the stipulation that the text on the interface is illegible to non-cultists. The board can be printed from circuit imprinters after reverse-engineering a Ritual Alignment board.
## Alternatives
- Not all of the described runes, items, and mechanics need to be implemented. Only the following features are essential to the stated design goals:
- Soul energy
- Runecrafting/Pylons
- Infusion
- Runed Metal
- Soul Shards
- Constructs/Awaken Construct
- Holy water working like acid against cult items
- NPIs
- A method to summon Nar'Sie, and mechanical changes to her that align with goals #3, #4, and #6
- The geoscope could instead be a toggleable innate ability, though this reduces the amount of interaction the cult has with the rest of the station while also allowing them access to an additional HUD on top of the one provided by the geoscope. Giving the cult innate abilities, even solely-informative ones, that don't require any items whatsoever seems like it could could contribute to non-goal #3.
- If the rework of cult is not approved, than the rework to soul shards could be adapted to work within the confines of the current form of cult. This would somewhat fall in line with preventing non-goal #1, though the team deathmatch scenario that results from an ascendant cult is the epitome of non-goals #1 and #2.
## Potential Changes
- If non-goal #2 is realized due to an overly zealous security, a method for the cult to revive dead or even gibbed/dusted cultists could be implemented to further disincentivize liberally practicing the execution of cultists.
- If it is believed that Ultimate Ritual Pylons occasionally requiring filled soul shards of specific crew members falls afoul of non-goal #1, that objective could be removed from the list of possible objectives and replaced with one or more new objectives, though these objectives should, in one way or another, help fulfill goal #1.
- If, due to player behavior, non-goal #5 is realized, cult constructs can be removed, though their removal could fail goal #6, as well as create a sort of aesthetic dissonance in the fact that wizards are the only source of constructs, despite them being first introduced with the original version of cult back in the early 2010s.
- If it appears that the cult severely struggles to succeed most of the time, methods to improve their stealth, adaptability, or durability could be implemented, though excessive additions of such improvements could risk achieving non-goal #3. Possible buffs to the cult include, but are not limited to:
- A charm effect that lets cultists force witnesses to forget about their presence.
- A parallel dimension that the cult can use either to hide their structures or decentralize their operations. (One or both use cases can be accounted for if implemented)
- A means of shielding structures from damage using soul energy, such as a ritual or structure.
- A means by which cultists can use their own bodies as sources of soul energy without draining their own blood, such as a transmitter with an associated receiver that hooks into blood basins.
- Easy access to fool-proof identity concealment so that even the best security can't easily track down detected cultists.
- If the mechanics of Ultimate Ritual Pylon placement prove difficult, there are several options that could be taken to resolve this:
- Adjust the placement requirements for the more difficult Ultimate Rituals.
- Make the Ultimate Ritual Pylons require being placed in set areas rather than with specific geometric relations to each other. While easier to follow, this could hamstring the cult while also making the mechanic less consistent than with regular runes.
- If the mechanics for runecrafting prove too difficult or unintuitive, runecrafting could be changed to involve compositing pre-made inscriptions atop each other to create different runes. This amounts to the rune mechanic from the original version of cult, but with a fancier coat of paint and all possible runes available from the start.