Life is Feudal - Where Religion is Important (Kinda?)

[Apoca Ailen]

So, there is not yet much information on this, as far as I can tell. Just a few paragraphs, a vague wiki page, and a bunch of discussion threads.

Piety is a secondary crafting skill that is extremely unique. Only one player on an entire server can reach level 100 Piety, and that person is the Pope. The 10 next highest Piety players are ranked Cardinals, but the Pope and Cardinals can begin Pope elections. The Pope receives two voices, while Cardinals receive one. This is realistic and somewhat historically accurate, but blessings are controversial.

Blessings can be used if your Piety skill level is sufficient, and grants specific benefits. Blessings could fit into both fantasy and realism. While religious organizations utilize blessings and prayers to affirm belief and strong mental attitudes, blessings in LiF grant very specific benefits such as improved luck or teleportation to your house. This could be considered either the work of an almighty or the placebo effect.

Anyways, much like Wurm Online, practitioners of piety are quite important (or potentially can be) to a group of players. Not because of direct actions. Unlike Wurm, piety only involves blessings - the higher your piety the more helpful the Blessings you can bestow are. See this wiki for an idea on a few of the Blessings that are (I believe) planned.

For example, one of the Blessings would be to reduce, or remove, the negative effects of death during a siege.

Also, the skill is said to be a secondary/peaceful skill and I believe that means it does not go towards your skill cap. This means, if I am right, you can learn Piety and still be able to partake in learning combat and crafting professions to the fullest extent.


So, why do I think this is worth the Duchy's focus and (more specifically) the focus of the Church? First, so far it has been suggested that there will be no organized/set religion in the game. This may change, but for now this leads me to believe that we can bring in our own hand-crafted religion into Life is Feudals budding community and give it a great start from the get-go. It would be great if we could spread our dogma and have people voluntarily begin following our church straight from the start. This will give us ample opportunity for role play encounters and may also help other communities/players feel more inclined to like us.

Second, as my quot says there is a pope/cardinal system. If we invest early on, recruit those who wish to focus on the piety system, and bag ourselves a few cardinals, we may be able to have a priest of our Church (hopefully one within the Duchy) set as Pope. It would be great if most of the cardinals and the Pope in the game would represent our Church.


As I am not involved with the Church past what is expected of me, I am not qualified to begin this process. Hopefully those of you that have taken Oaths of Faith can begin the process. There is a Lore section, as well as one for Fan creation. Importing of our teachings may fit in either.

If it does turn out that the Devs introduced a pre-created and structured religion to go along with Piety, I still think we should invest in it.

[Azzerhoden Razeri]

There is an entry in an archived FAQ from July 2014 regarding the Pope and religion:

476) First a comment, I used to play Wurm and Darkfall and just wanna say this game is going to blow them away. Wurm's playerbase is gone anyway, but my question is you said religious powers is that going to be like wurm? Where you have to pray to your diety and then can become a priest? If thats the case then is it going to be a non combatant priest? How about enchanting as well? Sorry if this is alot of questions just curious
476) TBH I have never seen Wurm religion system (I've played it for a month or so like 3-4 years ago). I never stated that our religious system will be like the Wurm's one. It will simply allow you to recall home, pray to regain your alignment, and provide some blessings before combat to avoid skill loss after death in a battle. There is a whole Pope and Holy Church system in plan, but it will be implemented way way later. 536.a (editors note, not techinally 536a but it didn't have a number and fit here) what Religion, GOD will be in this game? his name? art?
536.a) Terrun - a God underground with underground temples and worshipers. No art yet. But you can read more lore on that matter here: [Terrun]

That being said, (I have yet to read all the lore), I suspect we will be able to fit in our church dogma easily into that of the world.

A couple other points:

• Points placed into piety do get counted toward the peaceful skills cap.
• Everyone will want to put 30 points into piety, as it allows players to use a different prayer to raise alignment. This is the only way to raise alignment, and it is easy to lose. Trust us.
• The amount of skill points lost when you die IS SIGNIFICANT, and tied to your alignment. I believe when I was at -9 I lost around 8-10 skill points. At 20 someone lost 6-7(?), and on one of my characters I had an alignment of 80, and only lost 2.5 total skill points. Points lost come off multiple skills, so in the latter instances I lost .5 across 5 skills.
• When you die you suffer 'death sickness', which lasts for several minutes. This greatly impacts your stamina regeneration, which will effectively keep you out of a fight (or at the very least, keep you from attacking more than a couple times).
• 'Luck' is also important, as it keeps you from suffering major wounds. These wounds can last for up 2.5 hours (real time), and cause you to move slower, have reduced attributes, and more.

[Beloth]

I am very interested in trying to develop some RP around the church dogma and life. I have almost leveled up my piety and will be willing to work with someone or start something to try and bring a more vibrant religious aspect the the LiF Wessex RP. Obviously this will be much easier when the implement the blessings system in a later update but in the meantime I will try to help as much as possible in developing some RP activities within the structure of the church dogma written on these forums. I was also thinking that until they implement an actual church building in the game perhaps we could dedicate a certain house to the church and have those interested in obtaining priesthood live and study from this location. Just throwing out some different ideas, I really like the idea and even though I am brand new I would be happy to help develop whatever I can.

[Varrick ChaosWielder]

I believe there is a lot of potential for us here. Any game that permits the construction of a Church is gets thumbs up from me. LiF has been in my sights for quite some time now, for multiple reasons.