Not quite. Divine Realms don't play well with live mortals without hilarious excesses of stability, since Divine Realms are products of Divine Magic (Fourth), which is heavily affected by mortal belief and opinion.
Figures. Basically we can have mortals visit, but part of the reason to make it difficult to enter is that long term significant mortal residence makes it unstable(and this thing being 2 ambrosia and 20 DE, at the LEAST it's going to discharge like a minor earthquake).
Stealing a good looking fellow or two works fine, but starting a village in there would be dangerous.
All at once. Basically your realm stability cap is equal to the amount of Ambrosia you can amass together, with all of your underlings and special abilities.
So Shrine + Underlings combined efforts huh?
Also takes obscene amounts of DE, assuming the ratio grows to match.
It sounds like only the highest expenditure of ambrosia matters for the Divine Realm creation.
Currently we can get to...
Shrine 7 + Saiga 4 + Saitev 4 + Attrouska 5 + Keshketev 3 = 23 ambrosia and 230 DE?
Ghette will be managed in the next update. He's cool. He's just gonna have an adventure.
Okay, so life support is nice(since it should prep the place for a cheaper Menagerie if we don't need to create food magically for any stored broods), but not compulsory.
That's actually a perfectly accurate representation of what the Avatar Gate is. The avatar or presence of the divine as they pass between realms is typically enough to drag wayward mortals into their realm entirely by accident, let alone on purpose. The passage leaves a temporary 'hole' where they were, that others can fall into, or chase into. In this way, a Divine Realm serves as a technical means of escape to an area of a Divine's greatest power, but if they can't fend off a chasing foe by then, they're really screwed.
You can spend Effect slots to make it even more difficult to beat you in your realm, but then you're kind of prepping for failures elsewhere by spending that way.
Probably. Makes more sense as a deployment zone than as a bunker, since anything capable of beating us in our Divine Realm would have us thoroughly spanked as it is.
Petitioner - You're pretty much right, given the technical difficulty of the death (you have to have possession of a corpse to destroy it or 'lose' it in most cases), which cuts away a fair portion of the cost. 3 is accurate.
Maw - It's more expensive because it affects everyone in your territory and not merely your faithful. 5 seems about right.
Love it when eyeballing gets it right.
Personal allowance is actually not a restriction you can impose so easily. You can make it difficult to pass into your realm, and adding survival checks, astrology checks, etc. are means of trying to screen people in, but you can't exclusivize a gateway. Any being that can trick the conditions of a metaphysical gateway in your influence could technically sneak into your realm, and any being that can reach your physical gates can get in.
So basically the fog or other easily accessible ones leave us vulnerable to people sneaking in with poor border control, and we want physical gates in places we can protect(so temples, or really high tier shrines)
Metaphysical gateways are also not exclusive to death. Deep meditation, or meeting a number of unique conditions while supplicating in your temples or shrines could also be feasible means of a sort of temporary 'astral' entry, or exit (yes, people could take things through metaphysical gates; think Kings of Dragon Pass Questing). You can impose a nearly upkeep-free mode of entry for pantheon mates this way. If you allow it by opening the way, clever Mediums and Shamans could gain access to the spirits of your realm and ask them for advice or even assistance (of course, the fewer conditions of activation, and the more allowances made for those who succeed, the costlier it is for you).
Hmm, so that's a useful consideration.
Pretty big vulnerability too, but it's much more convenient for a large pantheon of spirits under us, since spirits have VERY limited ranges, we cannot use the Temple physical entry method as primary in the long run, as many of the weaker spirits simply cannot physically reach it.
Astral entry works out for that. Hmm...need to think on ways to restrict entry for that.
It's mostly fake, they're just particularly shaped lumps of divine power. Supporter of Life, like all effects, push against the Stability of your realm to make it take forms more pleasing or even more tangible for you and others.
Gotcha. That makes Supporter of Life extremely good for the Carrier option of scooping mortals or monsters in to deploy to a distant location(i.e. Gaerig takes them into her realm, spends a few days flying to the target, then disembarks with her army), or sheltering some worshippers in the event that we're downwind of some Harzivan so they can rebuild after we clear out some safe space.
Fog Trap (Effect I think?) - Be warned that the narrative component of this effect would open you up to a weakpoint, a place that someone in the know could exploit to make a temporary gateway into your realm. There's already a natural weak area in any temple or holy site that can be exploited for entry (though it's fucking hard to get there to exploit a weakening), but major environmental elements, using Mount Olympus as an example, is an area of weakness in the space between Divine and Mortal. The weakening is actually a plus for upkeep, so it'd only be around 6 despite the powerful bonuses it grants.
Sounds pretty risky.
Weird Moons (Effect) - This would work, but the upkeep will be rather tough to deal with, and it couldn't guarantee a good moon every time. I'd have to think a little longer... probably at least upkeep 10.
Hmm, it's fun, but makes it difficult to use the Divine Realm for anything. A 1/10 chance of Violet Moon Laser and 1/10 chance of Blood Moon makes the place hideously unsafe.
Silver Lake (Effect) - This is neat. I like neat things. Upkeep 8 though, it's got some incredibly powerful innate effects.
It's very cool, but given the cost, probably should wait for when it's a better DE generator.
Got enough discussion that I think I can start to make a decision now. Our kid isn't in danger of starving to death in our Divine Realm, so we don't need to put life support in(which would encourage mortal )
Currently leaning towards:
[X] Gateway(Physical) - The Dark Pool - Upkeep 3 DE - It's possible to travel to your Divine Realm by diving into the dark depths of the Ambrosia Pools within your holy sites. However, those who aren't in your pantheon must navigate the starry maze within and find the hidden moon in the deeps to reach your Realm or return to the mortal world. Failure means they emerge, lost somewhere random on the side they entered from.
[X] Effect - The Star Sea - Upkeep 5 - The sea of your realm extends to the skies, and vice versa. The stars are islands in the night, the sea the endless dark. There, the intangible and the tangible are one and the same. Dispersed spirits and Ethereal avatars within your realm interact as if they were manifest and material, while even mortal flesh may paint with light and weave with shadow.
Going for cool shit we can figure out how exactly to exploit in play. Blurring the boundaries of spirit and material means that some exotic crafts and magical effects can be done here, and we might also do things like reproducing with light or music.
More friendly to dispersed or formless pantheon members as well, when we get around to making the meeting place
But mainly cool shit.
We need at least 3 stability to make an afterlife to begin with though. Physical entry, Metaphysical entry and afterlife trait.
