Crom worship and other religious updates

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I have been discussed with another community member about updating the religion system in CE. This got me thinking. While his post was more about adding new religion armor and cosmetic changes involving a layer of clothing underneath armor I want to bring up new systems.

My orginal statement about Crom:
"As far a Crom worship, Crom is a god watches over the dead, values strength, and gives misfortunes and curses instead of boons. He is kind of a cross between Hel and Tyr while also being cold and uncaring. He is almost exclusively worshipped by the cimmerians who in the books are almost all gone. I can only remember one time in all of the books that Crom did anything (the movies differ in this).

If you worship Crom it should be based around additional purge type events and spawning in bosses like with Jebbal Sag. Sacrifice boss heads or hearts to ramp up the purge metter, get temporary combat buffs or forge powerful weapons. His temple should be simple. No avatar. No clothes. Just misfortune."

Crom doesn’t care about you. According to the books by Robert E Howard, Crom gives us strength to fight at birth and as stated by Conan is more likely to curse you than help you if you get his attention. Howard wrote his books in the spirit of DnD meets Call of Cthulu so his deities are similar in tone. Like your god is a Dark Souls boss.

In the movies he is loosely based around the ‘riddle of steel’ concept. This is never explicitly explained but follows along with the dichotomy of the strength of aweapon vs the strength of its wielder.

Crom worship should be based out of a simple shrine based around the decor in the mounds of the dead. The alter as a sarcophagus that as you upgrade it collects skulls and weapons around it.

Collecting trophies from fallen enemies and bosses can be exchanged for increasing the purge metter or spawning special bosses or world bosses. Boss trophies can be forged into weapons. No avatar or bubble. Craftable placeables can be obelisks like the ones in the mounds or effigies (weapons stuck in the ground or in a pile of skulls a pike with a banner on it).

Fest can give a decent buff (stamina regen + grit bonus).

I would also like there to be craftable alters that would function at a T1 shrine but take up much less space. These cannot be upgraded and follow the same distance restrictions as shrines except for shrines of the same religion. Being restricted to T1 means there are no additional bubbles or avatars and devotion still can’t be moved. You could have your primary shrine of set and some alters on the side for crafting additional arrows.

If we use this method we can intoduce other gods without having to add additional avatars. Maybe there is an altar for Hanuman. Maybe you can craft altars for Jhil, Jullah or other lesser animal gods and get new recipes or transmutations.

Let me know what you think here.

@Bryan_Skull
Thanks for getting me worked up about this.

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I bring out the flame in the heart. So light them up.

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I think you’re kinda missing the essence of Crom here, like several others before you. Do you know how Cimmerians worship Crom?

By not worshiping him.

Crom is a god you worship through deeds, not prayers and shrines and altars. He gave men strength and courage at birth. After that, you’re on your own. No man should ask more of their god than that, according to Crom’s believers. So if you’re getting combat buffs and weapons and challengers and whatever else you think you should be getting by making sacrifices and praying to Crom, then it is not Crom.

When it comes to Conan universe gods, you can kind of consider Crom the mean old geezer in the creepy house down the block. Leave him alone and he’ll leave you alone. You go walking on his lawn, however, and he’ll fill your butt cheeks with rock salt from a double barrel. That is, if you’re lucky he’ll use rock salt. He’s not interested in what you have to say or what you have to offer or what you think he can give you. He’s just gonna send you to the emergency room so that you leave him alone and he can get back to watching his soaps.

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When I first started the game I thought, from what I read in the desription, “worshipping” Crom would already give me the knowledge on how to build a few starter things or an XP-boost. Make Crom the Atheists God, that will send you more purges sounds good to me. I dont think a shrine or sacrifices should be included though. Maybe a +5 survival bonus, as long as you build no shrines and worship nobody could also be a nice thing.

Allso I think all religions and their Items and clothes need an overhaul! They are just notreally relevant, except for a PVP-grind to get an Avatar that hardly ever works. Make them better, but only let players build one shrine and choose one religion.

(I know most of you want to be able to do everything, all the time and everywhere, I just think differently about survival games. Sometimes less is more. One useful shrine (at least to me) sound better than 6 not so useful ones)

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You are right. In the original Howard books that’s exactly how Crom is portrayed. My thoughts are not so much on going to find a priest and worship but more of a ‘negative’ effect in more frequent and additional threats. I would still like to have that sarcophagus where you throw your trophies of battle to prove your strength. With the feast I had in mind the one time (that I can remember) that Crom did intervene on Conan’s behalf.

I was also interested in the idea that this system could be used to ‘reroll’ legendary equipment. Dump you boss head or heart and a legendary and the boss you spawn would have a legendary item upon death. It doesn’t have to be a 1 for 1 exhange either.

I had the idea of this being more of an informal pile of triumph than a formal dedicated religion. There is plenty of other sourch material where Crom is more like Odin but I would still like this game to be based on the grittier original concept.

I agree with the last 2 paragraphs there. An experience boost would probably be a negligible bonus for not choosing another religion but I do understand your thoughts.

Part of my idea for the altars us to distill down why so many of us have 3 or more shrines stuffed into our houses. My suggestion for this was a small altar that was more of a crafting station than a true shrine. Even Conan himself knowns the basics of several different religions. With this you can have you primary shrine and have altars somewhere where you can make basic items for other religions without building a whole new temple just to house it.

It would also, as I said before, allow implementation of other gods without a massive overhaul. Yeah you can build an altar for Jhil. It doesn’t give you a bubble or avatar but you can craft useful stuff.

Just stay off Crom’s yard.

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Crom and Crom worship through deeds and actions is absolutely correct! Crom and Conan are the two primary halves of the existential ideals portrayed in Howards work!

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Its so nice to meet another Crom afficionado The_Hunderprest! While I have a number my own takes on what his features should be (as do virtually all of us who want them, haha), I definately agree with the meat and bones of your post. I unequivocally and wholeheartedly agree Crom should have something in the way of in-game features which offer no in-game benefits/bonuses.

Weapons: I agree that he should have several (more) of his own unique weapons, NOT built or given by Crom himself of course; but forged by us, mere men as a tribute to him in the Handcrafting menu or a special Shrine*.

Shrine*: I would also like some form of to ‘shrine’ him. Personally I think a unique or reskinned Balcksmiths Forge where we or a Thrall can build the goods with our own two hands would be the best bet. Something along the lines of the ones found in my Contest. Even better if we can find a rare Legendary/Master smith in the game, in a similar vein to the Dafari Witchdoctor.

Placeables: A handful of placeables such as statues, banners or Mountain sculpture we can place aroound our bases so that those who wish to can roleplay their devotion too him.

Purge: I would like it even more if building these items, or in some way drawing his attention, resulted in him sending a high powered Purge to kill the player.

There are ultimately two things I would want said features to offer: I) a way to Roleplay our loyalty and allegiance to him, and II) a way to complete the games Journey Steps without being forced to betray him. (Both would be covered)

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Think thats a viable option too.

The impact of what religion youd choose is just very low if it was done the way you suggest. I would personally prefer to make the choice of religion more impactful by giving it a balanced, yet powerful overhaul but letting players choose and build only one shrine instead of all the shrines they want. Limitation is not always a bad thing, it is however something that people nowadays, where everyone is used to get whatever, whenever and everything they want, most likely will have an issue with.

Your way is the one thats more likly to happen and satisfy a higher percentage of players.

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One detail many people miss is that Cimmerians were not monotheistic. Crom was not their only god, he was the chief of their pantheon. We know little of the other Cimmerian gods except for a few names, but some of those may have been more caring for their worshipers than big old and mean.

Also, Exiled Lands gods are, according to Conan’s own words, something different from the gods of the Hyborian Age. They are what the people on the lands made them. From this perspective, even Crom could become something more “active”, so to say, in the Exiled Lands than he’s depicted in fiction. It’s not like Mitra worshipers in the civilized nations such as Aquilonia or Nemedia offered human souls gathered by mutilating dead bodies at their mainstream temples, so I wouldn’t necessarily stick too closely to Howard’s descriptions of Crom. It’s not really Funcom butchering the lore but rather Funcom writing lore where the Exiled people are butchering the essence of their religions.

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@Kapoteeni. A true and eloquently made point Captain. This game presents its own unique lore, and with it some unique and potential opportunities. Just an observation: when we got our first two Crom weapons added into the game, I was expecting backlash and complaints from a subset of players; instead Ive not seen one thread complaining about them and asking for their removal.

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As we have it now the only restriction is how far away you can place the shrines from each other and how big they are. I personally tend not to actually use more than one shrine at any of my bases even if there are more than one built there.

I am being greedy wiyh this topic. I would love a crafting station sized basic altar both cosmetically and so I dont have to build a huge shrine just for basic recipes.

@Croms_Faithful I dont feel like its too out of character for Crom to ‘test’ those who chose to show him tribute of strength and I like the idea of pitching unwanted legendary items for a chance at something better. I would thinks that’s more Crom like to make you fight for something than let you craft it.

The inclusion of other gods as altars for specific recipes is another implementation of additional content for us without too much hassle on the devs side. Not every religion needs a fully fleshed out recipe and upgrade tree. They can be there just as interesting content or a new way to create resources.

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