Doyle has returned to carving up the inner sphere of the seventh floor and more time passes. Outside in the town, the Barrais along with the carpenters have set up a field for most of the cows. Though they do have a smaller field inside the inner ring for their personal experiments and farm animals.
The one important feature at both fields is a small shrine with an Idol of a golden cow. Sure, the Idol isn’t actually made of gold but rather carved of wood and painted with some scavenged paint. Maybe the skill behind carving it isn’t exactly the best. All of that didn’t matter. Rather, despite the somewhat shoddy nature and low-quality materials, it was made by a true idol craftsman.
An older lady had come in with Jan’s group. A rarity not only for her age, but also for being from a different continent. That last detail was important because where she came from was a religious crossroads and she had made her living by carving small idols for those on a pilgrimage. Not skillfully, but rather with passion and reverence, no matter the deity or saint.
And that was the key. While not skilled, that devotion now translated into a special quality. That of being able to craft a true Idol without being a follower. In the wider universe, this isn’t the rarest of things, but definitely a catch this early for a new world.
For the normal deities people would worship, a true Idol only provides a small boost and allows a church to gain some system based protection. The true need for an Idol only comes into play at the higher levels. Moota however isn’t a normal deity, but rather a beast deity.
That one detail changes the value of a true Idol. Animals that match the portrayed deity will naturally begin to believe in the deity. This wasn’t missed by Moota. Not only wasn’t it missed though, but it caused a reaction that drew her back to the world.
Why? Because while a true Idol might not mean much to the believers, that isn’t the case for the deity. At least not for the first true Idol on a world. Just like how a deity can visit a world as long as someone is faithful there, an Idol is like that but supercharged. Before Moota would have needed to spend some effort and energy to visit Doyle’s planet even if every single cow had believed in her.
The first true Idol is like a free ride to a planet so of course Moota isn’t going to turn it down. Though this time she won’t have to literally knock on the dungeon to get Doyle’s attention. A quick call to Ally and she was let in.
Moota takes a moment to look around and nods, “Looks like I wasn’t wrong to bet on you guys. I admit I had second thoughts when Ally came to cry on my shoulder, but it seems things are working out between the two of you.”
Ally laughs nervously, “Yeah, I did kind of use you for emotional support. Not many people on my phone that I could call. It would have just been embarrassing to have to call my mom.”
Doyle nods, ‘I’m glad you did have someone to depend on. Anyway,’ and he turns his attention to Moota, ‘What brings you here? Not exactly the most hopping part of the universe.’
Moota shrugs, “You’ve got an Idol crafter in town. Why would I turn down a free ride? Though more seriously, it is nice just to be able to skip out on my position as an eternal intern. Oh, and I wasn’t expecting to be able to do much here? Like, you can’t expect a true Idol to just pop up so soon! Even the pantheons have a hard time getting one this early and I’m the first here.
“Sure, other gods have their believers, but they aren’t going to spend the faith to travel here. Though a quick warning. Going to want to keep an eye on those who might commission that crafter. There are some nasty beings out there. No offense to Ally, but I heard about the fae worshipper the town just had to deal with. If that Fae had gotten a foothold through an Idol no one would be having a fun time. Fae are a pain to deal with.”
Ally sighs, “Yeah, don’t worry about it. I had to live with them, after all. Of all the people, I was in a particularly good position to know all about how annoying it is to have Fae hanging around.”
Doyle’s core twinkles, ‘I know what you mean!’
Ally rolls her eyes, “Heh, funny. Anyway, the Fae aren’t the worst things out there being worshiped and not all of them will be limited like others are.”
Moota nods, “True that. I’m sure you have enough stories about outer gods and what not. As it is, your world here is a clean slate. Of course, with enough time, most things will manage to sneak in unless one particular religion locks a world down. But I don’t see this planet turning into a shrine world so eventually you’ll get to deal with those freaks.
“At that point, though, there should be enough people able to defend against it. I’m going to drop a message to the town about it as well, but if you can, give them the option to let you be less than friendly to those cultists.”
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Doyle laughs, ‘As luck would have it that is already partly in place to a degree. The town was a little shocked by what happened with that cultist so now is requiring those with a blessing to report it at the gate. Of course that won’t catch a passive follower, but I don’t think those would be the type to get an idol.’
Ally grimaces, “That might not be the case. Monitoring who is worshiping which being isn’t exactly a new idea so of course there are ways around it.”
Moota sighs, “You can’t really do much about it. But that is why I’m going to warn them about the Idol thing. It isn’t exactly something I’m supposed to be telling the ‘mortals’, but they are caring for my followers. Plus, screw those cliquish deities.”
Doyle rolls his core back, ‘The more I learn, the more it feels like the world is doomed. Every corner I turn there is a new gotcha.’
Moota shrugs, “That’s just life. It isn’t like your world was necessarily safer before this. Even without magic, a single unlucky event can doom a world. You’ve just traded off some dangers for others.
“For instance, while you might have to worry about outer gods, the normal deities will be able to prevent random meteors from smashing your face in. A single deity might not be allowed to do much, but with enough of them true miracles can happen. Though you can’t expect them to truly fix everything. After all, a desperate person is more likely to worship a deity.”
Ally laughs, “More than just a few of those shrine worlds are constantly on the edge of collapse with only their deity keeping things together. Nevermind that the deity might have set the situation up like that in the first place.”
Doyle tilts to the side, ‘I’m going to guess there are a million and one ways to set up a disaster that is cheap to just pause.’
Moota nods, “Just hang a moon in a decaying orbit where it just takes a small shove to keep it stable. As long as the people on the world stay planet bound, there is no way for them to fix it. Like, that sort of thing is so easy to set up that I’m sure there are millions of planets like that out there.
“But we have gotten a bit off track. As I already mentioned, I’m going to send the town a mention about being careful about who idols are made for. They are lucky in the fact that an idol has to actually represent the being it is for or it won’t work. On the other hand, deities can have all kinds of wild forms and so it isn’t as easy as just banning idols with tentacles involved.
“Beside that mess, I also wanted to bless the Idol. Of course, when I showed up, I found there were two already. While the one out in the larger pen has more cows, I highly suspect I’ll get a better return on the smaller pen in with those founders.”
Ally raises an eyebrow, “I must admit I don’t know what blessing an Idol will do for it. Though I assume since you’re bringing it up, you want our input?”
Moota brings up a system screen with a 3d graph, “This is a simplified version of what blessing an Idol can do for a deity with around my follower count. Simplified because it is only using 3 axises to display the variables and isn’t constantly in flux. For me personally with that specific Idol? I can think of at least ten options that might be available but there will be an absolute ton of extras kicking about.
“The three I’m looking for though are an increased chance of sapience, an increased chance of a bloodline, and the rarest possible outcome, which is the ability to appoint one of the nearby cattle as a priest of my religion. The last one is rare mostly because none of the cattle on the planet, let alone near the Idol, are anywhere close to being on the evolutionary path to gaining sapience. Kind of hard to be a priest if you aren’t sapient.”
Doyle nods, ‘I would assume so. But none of this matters unless we know what the options are. Can you check it from here?’
Moota smiles and pulls up a new screen.
{Choose an Idol Blessing:
Increased chance of cattle having twins
Decreased chance of diseases spreading to cattle
Increased chance of a bloodline
Cattle herds are more cohesive
Symbiotic beings that target cattle have reduced negative effects
...}
Moota looks at the bottom and sighs, “I’m glad the system puts the more beneficial options at the top and cuts off the rest. There are probably a good hundred extra blessings being hidden at the moment. Worse yet, some of them will say the same thing. After all, it doesn’t exactly say how much of an increase or decrease the blessings provide. Luckily, it looks like the bloodline chance is in the top five and I don’t have to go dumpster diving for it or the sapience one.”
Ally frowns, “If there are so many options couldn’t the priest one be among them?”
Moota sighs, “If only. That isn’t exactly an option that has varying degrees to it. Either you can get a priest or not. The bloodline one could be an increase of either 1%, 10%, or 0.0001% and it won’t tell me. Scratch that, technically the really low chance it might add a modifier to the front of it, so instead say it was a slightly increased chance.”
Doyle nods, “That makes sense. Though it looks like there isn’t really a choice here, especially since it is an increased chance of a bloodline. The founders are going to be doing what they can to get something like that already so it would be a multiplicative boost to what they are already doing.”
Moota laughs, “I’m actually a bit torn. The option for more twins is first on the list and would be amazing. After all, the rate of twins being born to normal cattle is about one in 200 so about 0.5% chance. While what goes into the blessings tend to not be a simple percentage increase, as there are so many variables, the twins blessing could mean twins being born one in 50 instead.
“If the town was going to depend on raising cattle, the increase that would provide would be astronomical. Like, you couldn’t ask for a better blessing. Still, I’m going with the bloodline blessing, if only because of how interesting your town already is.”