Peaceful Gods Discriminated against by the rules

An issue has come up in Varchild's game. We have a Player who is playing the Goddess of Healing. She is a very anti-conflict deity. Per the rules she gains no belief back from the miracles she performs since they are not in a conflict. How do Peaceful Deities gain belief. Also since she follows more the Hindu/Bhuddist belief against Prostelyzing how does she gain followers?

IMO the game does not discriminate against any types of god. First off, the term CONFLICT in regards to this game purely means any contest resolved through rolling the dice. This includes DEFENDING as well as attacking, FLEEING as well as giving chase, and HIDING as well as seeking. It also includes contested attempts to influence others with words or actions.

On the Healing domain front, the curing of diseases by means of miracles creates a Destruction conflict - Miracle vs. Disease. The causing of diseases by means of miracles creates a Creation conflict (as odd as that sounds) - Disease vs. enemies. The latter may cause terror depending entirely on how virulent/horrifying in description the disease caused is, a sniffly nose epidemic is not going to gain terror. An Ebola outbreak is. A completely original disease that makes men's genitalia swell up and seep an oozing black puss most definitely will!

On a purely follower-based combative front, defensive actions do not have to be directly combative. Since you brought Buddhism into this, I'll direct your attention to the Shaolin of China and Tibet... Trained in martial arts, yet pacifists... If a fight comes to you you have the responsibility to defend yourself. You can win a conflict by simply preventing an enemy from defeating you. Your opponent decides which units you affect when you win, you decide if you killed them, subdued them, or just kept them from harming you.

On a more godly-based combative front, similar applies to a god's involvement when the god is pacifistic. Defending your people does not require you to engage in violence! You can erect walls (like the God of the Hunt did). You can deter your enemies with a plague of headaches. You can erect a field of stinging nettles between the town and the enemy forces. There are a thousand fold miracles that can be used to defend your followers without being violent combative conflict.




However, I agree that the game does limit non-recruitment officer gods. If she doesn't actively attempt to convert new followers, her options are extremely limited. She can honestly only gain new followers if another god relinquishes followers to her (for whatever reason a god might do so), by slow conversion (like gentling a horse or training a dog) of prisoners of war by non-miraculous means, or she can wait each year to gain her normal supply of maturing adults.




Fate - On the maturity rate/death rate front, I've been considering using the dice method I talked about before (all rates may be targeted by miracles), but I'm considering the following, based on what the region is like:

Uninhabitable: (1-1d8) The tribe has a maturity rate of 1, but a death rate of 1d8. An uninhabitable region prevents children from reaching maturity while also making life extremely difficult for people to survive. Death rates are higher than maturity rates by massive margins.

Harsh: (1d4-1d6) The tribe has a maturity rate of 1d4, but a death rate of 1d6. A harsh region is difficult to live in. Children sometimes die before reaching maturity and people have to live rugged and taxing lives that pass by much faster than normal. Death rates are higher than maturity rates, but not by much.

Ample: (1d6-1d4) The tribe has a maturity rate of 1d6, but a death rate of 1d4. An ample region is easy to live and work in. Children usually survive to maturity and adults live longer healthier lives. Death rates are lower than maturity rates, but not by much.

Lush: (1d8-1) The tribe has a maturity rate of 1d8, but a death rate of 1. A lush region allows children to reach maturity much more often while also making life much easier for adults to survive. Maturity rates are higher than death rates by massive margins.

There might be a certain amount of "drift" from other nearby deities even without active proseletyzing--parents of sick kids are very likely to have the kid cared for by followers of a healer deity, and it's a fairly small step to beg the the Healer for assistance and give thanks to the Healer if the kid gets better. A couple rounds of that and the Household may have effectively switched allegiance regardless of where they live and what tribal affiliation they may claim.

Personally, I think this is another good argument for trying to build a solid, unified pantheon--the more aggressive (whether militaristic or missionary) deities bring in new followers to the pantheon as a whole, and the Belief gets spread around amongst everybody. (Possibly with some tweaking depending on events over the year--a year in which plague spreads over the land might hurt the Healer's Belief; if a plague spreads through neighboring territories but the pantheon's followers are spared, the Healer gets more Belief than others. Likewise, successfully fending off an invasion might give the god of War an extra share of Belief that year, but a war of conquest that goes poorly might cost him. And so forth.)

But yes, a peaceful and non-missionary deity is going to be FAR more dependent on random acts of Fate to set up the conditions by which s/he will gain bonus Belief and/or followers.

1) Gyphoness and her husband should be doing the fertility-instabirth among their people. Sure, it doesn't pay off for sixteen years, when those instababies reach adulthood, but look at the results compared to the rest of us.

2) I thought it was Miracles that BENEFITed the people, such as the Tree of Abundance or making a hero for the people.

3) The game DOES discriminate against defensive deities, implying they are stupid and ineffective. Witness: Dirce, from Wolves at the Door. [spoiler clipped]

Anyway, the game presumes:
1) PC deities actively Miracle their followers, sometimes to the point of Dependency.
2) PCs take the lead in converting the barbarians, rather than leave it to their Spirit-folk.
3) The world is a harsh land, presenting ample opportunity for defense miracles.

One of the things that gets me with this is that one of the sample pantheon is definitely a non-conflict oriented Deity The God of the Forge. And even with this that there is very little to gaining belief if you are not conflict oriented.