Demigods have never enticed me to play because we’re missing out on a huge portion of the most interesting gameplay in losing religion.
I’d propose giving Demigods the ability to denounce gods as part of their own ascension. How this works is simple:
- For each level gained, Demigods can desecrate one altar.
- Desecration permanently incurs the wrath of the god, but at a greatly reduced rate (e.g. 5-10%). This gives Demigods bonus stats dependent on the god (which varies with the danger level of their wrath).
- Gods like Ru without wrath are freebies. Gods like Gozag that have god-dependent punishments (closing god stores) only apply the punishments they can.
- Wraths are CUMULATIVE, but up to a limit (e.g. max every 200 turns).
Desecration’s permanent buffs can then grant increases to stats, hp/mp, spell success, skills, etc. The design here is flexible, each wrath can grant something different to balance for the danger level, or just give players strategic options for which to pursue.
The benefit can be thematic as well, e.g. Sif Muna’s wrath grants max mp, Trog’s wrath grants slaying, etc. Not specifying more here because I think the community would have better idea on balance for this.