Here’s a speculation about what Divine Nodes are and what it offers. We all know Divine Nodes will be focused around skill and equipment augmentations as well as religion progression within Ashes of Creation. NPCs populating a Divine Node will obviously be priests and simple religious folk gathering around shrines and temples as part of their daily routine. The streets will likely follow a much more traditional fantasy-based aesthetic with lamp posts and buildings decorated with religious symbols of the seven Gods in Verra. Additionally the 3 evil Gods, the others, will likely have a place within Divine Nodes too hidden deep within a cult tavern’s basement for players who wish to worship these evil Gods to still have a place to progress and commune with their God easily.
DIVINE GOVERNMENT
To become a mayor of a Divine Node, one must complete a series of quests which will no doubt take a sizable team to complete. Probably making someone high up within a guild is the likeliest candidate to lead these Nodes as they will have their guild members to help them with the various tasks needed to complete the quests. We have no specific information on this quest however nothing is stopping us from throwing out some speculation.
Once the Node reaches level 3, the village stage players are able to begin a quest which shows their devotion to the Gods. This quest would require you to go out and slay corrupted players and monsters. This would likely mean that once the Node reaches level 3, a dungeon nearby will spawn housing specifically corrupted mobs which would be a little bonus for Divine Nodes as players on the server could always rely on there being corrupted mobs somewhere nearby. Once you rid Verra of a certain amount of corruption, the follow up for this could be destroying the source of corruption deep within the dungeon. Taking the form of a huge spider, which has been corrupted beyond redemption. This would be where the group aspect comes in as killing these dungeon bosses are likely going to be impossible solo. Once these 2 tasks are complete, the chain will ramp up requiring more powerful corrupted beings to be put to rest. Until eventually you and your team are given a special item which you will use to rip open a portal to the other’s realm and destroy one of them. This could be one of three different encounters as there are 3 of the others. Each one requires different tactics and group requirement checks but most of all these encounters could really put your religion to the test by requiring your members to be so far into their respective God’s religion progression that it allows you to protect yourself from attacks. Once the evil Gods are slain, the party leader can take back the evidence and is rewarded with the title of Mayor for the Divine Node. This means, to win leadership of a Divine Node, it would be more of a race with your team against others rather than a show of skill or manipulation of votes. Giving the Divine Node a more competitive feel to it rather than something chill that we could expect from a religious themed node.
There’s the aspect of what if a player who is fighting for the node’s leadership actually worships one of the others. The quest chain can most likely stay the same as this agent of the others could easily just be slaying his own kind to gain the Divine’s trust. This time the other’s realm instance can be performed solo and once you defeat the ancient champion within to gain the other’s favor, you stand over the defeated being as it looks up to you for mercy.
THE TEMPLE
There is no information on the Divine Node’s unique building, The Temple. There may be multiple temple slots depending on the level of the node. So a village giving us just one and a metropolis gives us 4 but there are 7 Gods so 3 of the religions may not get a spot. Meaning only 4 religions will have access to the most powerful abilities as the temple will no doubt level up along with the node itself. Like the library does in the scientific nodes. We are going to have to wait for the Alpha One and Beyond to get more information on the temples and its benefits.
DIVINE SUPER POWER
This does not exist yet. Surprise! What do you think is a cool superpower for the Divine Node to have?