Ok, time for another feedback, this time it’s based on the mythological features of TOS and the way religion is represented.
First of all, let’s talk about the “Pantheon” represented so far.
What we can learn from the story presented to us by IMC is that the gods were suddenly gone and the people were left alone with their problems, which marked the beginning of the power-shift from humans+gods towards the demons.
The “tree”,which is eponymous to the game and hopefully part of the lore suddenly randsacked the capital of the human kingdom we currently play in, and caused damage to all nearby cities. Then the demons overran the kingdom and took all the land(except for the few semi-intact cities) for themselves.
When we start our journey, we learn of the “Revelations” left by the Goddess Laima [who ironically decides the fate and length of the life of humans at birth, at least according to Lithuanian mythology], so we set out to get to know what kind of fate Laima has in store for us [well, at least she’s generous enough to tell us a bit of it, while other people live their life oblivious to their fate] and, of course, to learn what happened to all the goddesses [and maybe gods? Lithuania also has many male gods, but who knows where they are? Did they just abandon their women and daughters? Oo].
After a few dungeons, we get to rescue our first goddess [yay, let’s build a harem… well, at least according to some sources, Saule divorced her husband because he became infatuated by Ausrine, so she should be single xD], the goddess of the sun, Saule.
The fact alone that she is one of the most important gods in the Lithuanian Pantheon but also so heavily reprimanded by getting restrained in such a pathetic way [the monsters are far too weak to restrain a capital god, if even a lowlevel revelator can defeat them without problems who is supposed to have recieved part of his superhuman power by the gods, as she’s one of the most powerful deities] is somewhat embarassing [also the fact that the sun is still rising until she’s saved by us,since it’s supposed to be her job to make it happen…].
But let’s continue. Saule is, of course, not the only “goddess” we come across during our journey, as we also meet various others like Lada [goddess of youth,love and beauty; basically a “passive” attribute goddess, so nothing going for her strengh here; still, she’s guarded by stronger demons than Saule is…], Gabija [the goddess of the hearth and fire;
still she wasn’t able to beat Helgasercle], Vakarine [the goddess of the evening star, basically the maid of Saule; not able to subdue Blut or Hauberk] and others.
So,
after seeing how weak the goddesses are (and basically useless even after we help/rescue them),
we come to the next point: faith.
The faith in the “Dievs” is really strong in the people, ranging from the point that you see praying NPCs in the towns near the statues of the goddesses and the sanctuaries to the point where you have lots of religious-themed side quests to do [e.g. free sacntuary xy, work against cult z, repairing/uncursing goddess statues, help believers against Bramble,etc.].
However, there’s a grave mistake that this game teaches us and that all people with faith made: they believed.
Not arguing on the sadistic Laima who forced this nasty fate onto the people at their birth, we have to admit that basically all faith in this game is for naught. The goddesses are captured by the demons, so they can’t answer the prayers of the believers, and the divine arts are pretty pathetic at best. No wonder why the religious institutes and people didn’t have any countermeasures against the demons [although holy property deals 2x damage against most of them…], they improved their faith instead of strenghtening their bodies and/or their magic potential.
If we compare the Divine arts with most other skills, we can see how much worse they are. They are, in fact, so bad that most Cleric jobs have forsaken the way of divinity along the way and chose a way that provides them with a source of natural power, similar to how the Wizard Class approaches magic. “Cleric the unfaithful, so he shall live” seems to be the main theme of this game. The less faith you have, the better you become in exterminating enemies [just look at the few and weak holy property skills in comparison to the high amount of high-damage skills Class-wide].
But that’s not the only faulty thing. If we managed to save the goddesses and now know that they are "alive&kickin’ ", why don’t the Cleric Class trees represent anything ? Instead, we get more and more paganic approaches towards “faith” with each Rank. Cleric had the choice to go Priest or Krivis at Rank 2 (2 clerical classes), at Rank 3 we have Dievdirbys and Bokor[which only has 1 clerical class left over] and from Rank 4 onwards we have no more clerical Class advancements,except for Pardoner, who “buys” his damage rather than believing&praying [is he bribing the gods or the monsters?We’ll never know…] & Chaplain, who is basically just another Circle of Priest.
Miko/Kannushi are something outside of the usual religion-based theme, so it’s hard to call them a “clerical” advancement.
Even the more “rooted” Classes Oracle and Kabbalist are focusing on Divination [or : “how to make use of the divine power and read ones fate/alter it”] rather than praying/calling up/utilizing divine powers.
So,where did the faith go? Did you, without realizing, transcend to a stage of transhumanism where your power overshadows that of the gods so that there is no more need for faith&religion?
And why don’t the skills that are supposed to be “powered” by the gods (e.g. Divine Might, Heal,Cure,Exorcise, Magnus Exorcismus,Indulgentia, Merkabah) get stronger after you rescued their “fuel” source?
Instead, they get more sparse and pathetic by the level while you fight against stronger and stronger demons and can only keep up by spending money for attributes and equipment.
Meanwhile, becoming a pro in torturing [i.e. Inquisitor] or spending money on luxurious talismans [i.e. Taoist] will net you in some real deal against those sources of evilness. Brute force & “power of money over faith”, the same as for the other base Classes who give a damn about religion, and guess what?
They are stronger than religion & the gods.
Just my impression after playing this game, and after comparing it to Ragnarok Online.
In RO, the gods were never seen to be complete weaklings, and, as a player, you’d mainly indulge in fights with lowly creatures while unaware of what’s actually happening in the world.
The weakest celestial being you’d encounter was actually Randgrid, a valkyrja (and thus daughter of Thor), who put up a hell of a fight if you were to encounter her.
The religion was never shown as weak&pathetic, as well as the believers being actually strong-willed people, and the powers you could gain by becoming a servant of god were so helpful that noone would want to miss out on it.
Also, comparing Ragnarok [the real event, not the game] to what happens here in TOS makes the games storyline seem even more staged and stooged together. During Ragnarok, many of the major gods die in battle, here they just get captured and are used as batteries to produce Kruvina to fuse them with humans/demons and make them stronger [ The Matrix, anyone?]. Only the pawn-like people lose their lives…
It’s also strange that there are “Demon Prisons” to restrict captured demons. Why not just exorcise and/or obliterate them like the humans do?
This implies that gods cannot kill demons in the first place and make this story even more ridiculous. No wonder Laima already forsaw the events several hundred years ago. “Hey,let the humans do the work, they are stronger” is the implication.
Laima puts her faith into us.
A goddess, a being that’s supposed to be less limited than humans.
This says it all.
Humans are better than gods, which means religion and faith are meaningless and ridiculous in this game.
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