###### tags: `Lore`
# The Clockwork Cult (silicons)

- woo time for a trainwreck
- i don't have a huge attachment to most of this this is just a general ideas draft of one of the ways of how this *could* work
- to clarify: i am not a lore writer and this isnt even good lore which is why it isn't using proper grammar i literally don't care. the code section is however my design document for the gamemode/mechanics that would follow so whatever is done should atleast allow for that. talk to me if you want that section changed

## Lore

### General idea

- mildly obscure religion
- well known to exist
- not known of why how what they do who are they or their principles
- more "alternative" science/technology based (victorian era steampunk theme goes brr)
- "worships" an elder machine "god", "kind" "of"
- these guys are *not* well liked and are *assumed* to be bad by many
- in reality they are far more of a gray area than anything known of nar'sian cults, and are absolutely meant to be a murky area vs a "light vs dark" argument
- in tgcode the themes are "ratvar's light" vs "narsie snuffing out the stars". if you really want a light vs dark theme, these guys could be a corrupted light/fanatic good in nature for the more cult-like structures.

### theme
- victorian era steampunk
- heavy bias towards equipment in abilities vs eldritch blood magic/whatever
- pseudoscience vs not science at all
- enforced by haing measurable in game effects in anomaly handling and more interactions with the rest of the game instead of snowflake/"because i said so" effects

### language
- funny rot13 language goes brr
- not overly hard to learn but people don't usually just start speaking at 180 degrees to everyone else in alphabetical rotation for fun

### cohesion, community
- there's no such thing as a galaxy wide cult of "followers" (read: brainwashed people)
- there are many individual scholars
- often at a huge disadvantage due to being alone
- collectives exist but are rare
- collectives that don't get witchhunted are even rarer
- collectives that get witchhunted sometimes retaliate and become fanatics due to this, which is not helping their public view
- and ofcourse there are more commonly collectives that survive because they are ruthless because they were never great at the start (see: unironic fanatics trying to seize power, or do something in the name of 'ratvar' in a destiny 2 'speaker for the traveler' situation, a la what a cult is).
- these are the guys that are usually invading when you hae cult events.
- these are the guys that will brainwash people
- there may be somewhere with a common understanding + society of these guys, with actual infrastructure, etc etc.
- there may be power centers somewhere (hopefully somewhat tolerated so they aren't always at war)
- for the most part though you're either a lone scholar, a collective of some sort somewhere doing your own thing, or part of one of these power structures (in which case you probably aren't doing a funny crusade in most circumstances)

### "conversion"
- most followers aren't brainwashed (initially)
- sometimes dabbling with magic (duh) will bring you bad mental effects
- other times in extreme cases there is brainwashing
- this is painful unpleasant and usually destructive, much like bloodcult conversion
- due to the nature of this "cult" (knowledge and understanding) making 80% of your convertees slowly go insane and become mindless servants with a spear is a bad idea unless you are one of those fanatics who want to kill everyone who disagrees

### public view
- understandably a lot of people are pissed with these dudes, depending on situation/who you are,
- either because there's a lot of occult things like the cult of narsie flat out turning people into mindless zombies and killing everyone and these guys are also using occult things and get witchhunted
- or because they got witchhunted, retaliated en masse, and caused a ton of destruction
- or were fanatics from the start and gave someone a Very Bad Day for shits and giggles and now everyone hates the steampunkers
- tolerance varies by area
- even if not persecuted like other occult factions you are probably not given a good time because you are Sus and Cringe to most
- nanotrasen, station, etc
- **You are not going to have crewmembers trying to convert people to the Church of Ratvar.**
- **You are not going to have protagonists running down the hallway with a spear trying to be the center of attention.**
- **You are not going to have people openly flaunting this.**
- if these exist, they're probably Not going to want to make it widespread
- they probably aren't part of a collective with some goal because that makes it a little harder to conceal huh
- nanotrasen, while not a dystopian company that Literally owns your soul like on wacky action-packed gamer servers, wants profit and is a megacoropration. they do not want you starting a cult, especially after they get their funny admin cult mobspam event flagship marksman cut up by narsian dudes. you are not going to be a major player if you have a player character that you play daily for this, because if you were somehow enough of ~~a potential threat~~ an asset that you are a "company employed cultist", you would absolutely not be strolling along some random research station doing whatever.
- you probably won't get lynched for existing unless you seriously piss people off or make yourself a problem, but, the tl;dr is, you aren't welcome as much as some people being "tolerated" even if they have suspicious conduct regarding to it, and you definitely won't be in a position of authority over more than one place (and in most cases, even one place). you will not have clockwork cultist CCOs, you will not have the captain wielding a brass spear, etc etc, you get the point
- there *may* be situations where the crew uses said gear, there *may* be crew that are affiliated, there *may* be crew that are more than a little affiliated, but none of them are going to want to stick their head out to get put on the ~~PARA party shuttle list~~ chopping block.
- `TL;dr: Don't be an obnoxious snowflake. We will not tolerate clockaboos being protagonists 24/7, because like everything magical, we don't want every player running around with it being the center of attention because that gets in-fucking-tolerable real fast.`

### ratvar
- ratvar is their god.. kinda
- clockwork cult is hilariously diverse, and their "god" is an old belief
- some involved have little emphasis on old beliefs
- some involved fully believe in it
- others involved, usually hostile fanatics, are trying to summon him
- they usually end up summoning extremely destructive machines but no one can tell if it's the "god"
- tl;dr it's murky much like the rest of the cult and it's not an one and done "summon our narsian god to snuff out the stars" thing
- in the old belief/whatever you want to call it He is the source of their power
- in reality there's no proof of this and for all you know it might just be a myth
- this is mostly just because we don't want to explore the issues inherent with "otherworldly god comes to our dimension" vs "questionably monstrous machine comes to do things/fix things/break things at random" without going into bloodcult TDM.

### power source
- they use pseudoscience
- their devices are created by similar devices
- people with enough attunement/whatnot can commune and do minor magicks without gear but for the most part you're not a wizard
- and if you are powerful enough to be a wizard you probably aren't someone who's going to show up in the round, huh, though i'd honestly rather this not even exist
- theories include their devices use some sort of self-sustaining anomalous power that resonates with certain metals (brass) and provides effects both mechanical and biological
- there's room for error and perhaps this is usable even without a steampunk theme, it's just that it naturally skews towards it, and therefore you have a steampunk-like cult

## Code

Right well yeah no this isn't a cult.

This isn't even a conversion mode, really.

### Spawning
- Adminspawns
- Primarily for events, lore-based incursions, etc.
- Rare ruins have naturalspawned artifacts
- Even rarer ruins are themed towards this
- Extremely rare ruins contain large amounts of naturalspawned artifacts that **naturally allow progression towards knowledge/research**, aka have a far lower "knowledge curve" before things are usable.
- Restrict clockwork gear from being obtainable in the vast, vast majority of rounds.

### Allies
- There's no such thing as a hard antag team. Or teams at all.
- Team support will exist for events, whatnot.
- In general you're on your own. Anything clockwork related can and will friendly fire up the ass. This is to drive it home that clockwork cult isn't this singular gorup of brainwashed fanatics serving a singular god.

### Powers, abilities, equipment
- Most standard clockwork cult abilities from old /tg/ clockcult should exist in some manner, adapted for non teamplay
- **Clockwork mechanics are not bound to people with admin-given antag roles only.**
- Most things are equipment based and for "slab casts" something is added to make it usable for ""non cultists"" in the right circumstances

### Equipment
- Most are interesting steampunk-focused takes on modern gear
- Moderate power advantage over most station gear
- In return, has quirks (see things like certain vulnerabilities/things going wrong/etc) - antique gear and old design/thinking which is more "flashy and interesting" than "reliable and infallible".
- They'll have lots of "less anomalous" equipment that just works or has their more weird functions/uncommon functions harder to use by the untrained

### Knowledge
- Everyone can use cult gear
- Mechanically harder to use without knowledge
- Likely in the form of UI randomization/etc
- Knowledge intrinsic to admin-granted cultists but slowly increase in certain circumstances regardless
- Makes station integrating these mechanics to their own "side" more viable.

### Jamming, Anomalies
- Clockwork cult devices, casts, objects, etc, that are more than magic (stuff like judicial visors, the "kindle" spell, volt void, general AoE effects, belligerent, etc) are considered xenoarcheology exotic particle projections
- Can be nullified by nulling fields
- Can be weakened or nullified by other clockwork cultists
- Special interactions occur if blood/clock cultists fight each other, or among themselves.
- Actual clock cultists as well as those who hit the knowledge barrier + manage to apply it to themselves have innate dispel against their own projections
- Most hostile objects have weaker effects if suppressed.
- Most beneficial objects (especially ones with low range or are targeting self) are weaker if suppressed but are harder to nullify
- Most clockcult related mobs (which are basically sentient-adjacent machines) are heavily weakened in such fields
- Attacking projections (like voit void/similar) will flat out fizzle out if there's enough jamming in an area
- The chaplain's nullrod as well as other similar objects provides a strong AoE dampening effect.

### Conversion
- Adminspawn only, requires a formed team
- Generally unused since we don't want this.
- **Thematically**, corruption/brainwashing exists. This is very useful for events/hostile cultists. However, this is fluffed to not be the default.

### PVE
- Clockwork mobs, etc do exist
- Primary focus is not PvE.
- Quality vs quantity
- mobAI should have heavy use of abilities as well as "smart" ranged/melee combat
- optimally they should have player-like intelligence in that they will try to cheese you like regular players
- Will likely have an automation-assistance system for events
- Difficult to use inherently without knowledge of underlying systems and code.
- Discourages mobspam events