The Shrine
The shrine is the slow lever. You won't open it every hour, but when you do, it bends the next fight, the next harvest, or the next enemy day in your favour. You pay in lumen, and each god you've awakened answers with rites of their own.
The Church
Lumen
Combat
ReportsHow it works
First, build the church
The church is the only source of lumen. No plunder, no trade, no quiet treasure run today. It produces a slow trickle and holds only a modest reserve. At each god's unlock level, a fresh church gives you about one blessing per day per island. That is the rhythm to plan around. You are not stockpiling lumen, you are budgeting it.
Next, awaken a god
Each god has two locks. Your church must be tall enough to be heard, and the altar takes a one-time toll in troops, your cheapest units first. Awakening is permanent on that island, but the toll grows. Each god you wake raises the price of every god still asleep, so the order of your awakenings matters as much as the gods you choose.
Then, spend lumen on a rite
With a god awake, you can cast their rites. There are two kinds, and they live on opposite sides of the war.
Blessings are self-cast on your own islands. They run for an hour or two, layer on top of your standing modifiers, and can be extended by re-casting. The restack costs more than the first cast, and the stack caps at four times the base duration.
Curses are hostile. They land on an enemy place (or, in one case, on every island a single player holds). They cannot stack on the same target, and there is no counter-rite. Once a curse is on, the timer runs in full.
The rule that will surprise you
Restacking the same blessing costs more each time. The first cast is the bargain; the fourth costs nearly twice as much. The shrine rewards moments, not always-on buffs. Time your stacks around the hour you actually need them, and treat the first cast as the one that matters most.
The gods
The ones you can wake today
Thalor, Keeper of the Tides. Defence and decisive attack. Cast Last Tide in the hour before a big strike to put teeth in your fleet, or Bone-Set Walls when you see sails on the horizon and want to make the harbour expensive to break.
Veyra, the Whispering Veil. Hostile rites only. You do not buff yourself with Veyra; you make a single enemy's life harder. Famine wrecks one island's larder for four hours. Market Silence shuts down every harbour a single player holds for one hour. There is no counter-rite to either; the cure is patience.
Coming soon
Three more gods sit in the shrine, watching but not yet hearing. Korvath (war and forge), Elara (reveal and forewarn), and Nyssa (harvest, coin, and swift sails). Their altars open in later releases, and they will appear here with the same playbook treatment when they do.
Common questions
Why did my second cast cost more than the first?
Restacking carries an escalation. Each full stack held adds 25% of the base cost to the next purchase. The bargain is always the first cast on a clean timer.
Can the target cleanse my curse early?
No. There is no counter-rite today. A curse runs its full duration. The only mitigation is the target's own logistics, for example, shipping food in to ride out a Famine.
Why does Market Silence ask me to pick a player, not an island?
Market Silence is owner-scoped. It falls across every harbour the target governor holds in this world. The picker reflects that, and only one Market Silence can be active per player at a time.
Reference
Which gods exist, and what does it cost to wake them?5 gods, church 2 to 18
Each god has two locks: your church level, and a one-time troop sacrifice. The altar takes your cheapest unit types first. First-tier sacrifice is listed below; later awakenings cost more, and waking each god raises the base for every god still asleep.
| God | Domain | Church Lv | First sacrifice | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thalor | Defence, endurance, recovery | 2 | 60 | Live |
| Korvath | Attack, conquest, plunder | 6 | 200 | Coming Soon |
| Elara | Spy, reveal, forewarn | 10 | 500 | Coming Soon |
| Veyra | Stealth, deception, misdirect | 14 | 1,000 | Live |
| Nyssa | Luck, wealth, risk | 18 | 2,000 | Coming Soon |
What buffs can I cast on my own islands?2 blessings live today
Self-cast on your own island. Stackable: re-buying extends the timer up to a cap of four times the base duration, and the cost escalates with each stack held. Only the rites whose patron god is open this release are listed. More arrive as the other gods come online.
| Blessing | God | Cost | Duration | Max stack | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Last Tide | Thalor | 350 | 1h | 4h | +25% attack power |
| Bone-Set Walls | Thalor | 480 | 2h | 8h | +30% wall defence |
What hostile rites can I cast on an enemy?2 curses, cannot stack, cannot be cleansed
Cast on an enemy. Cannot be re-cast on the same target while active and cannot be cleansed early. The duration runs in full.
| Curse | God | Cost | Duration | Target | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Famine | Veyra | 500 | 4h | Enemy island | Food to 0, minus 10 happiness |
| Market Silence | Veyra | 750 | 1h | Enemy player (every island) | Trade blocked at every harbour |
Market Silence is owner-scoped. Clicking it asks you to pick a player, not an island. It silences every harbour they hold.
How is the math actually computed?formulas, eligibility, expiry
Lumen. Church produces 0.5 lumen per level per hour and stores up to 150 per level. On a fast (5x) world a fresh church fills its cap in roughly two days. No other source today.
Restack cost. When you re-cast a blessing that's already active on the same place:
cost = baseCost * (1 + 0.25 * stacksHeld) stacksHeld = floor(remainingSeconds / durationSeconds)
Example ladder for Last Tide (350 base):
| Stacks held | Multiplier | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 0 (fresh) | 1.00x | 350 |
| 1 | 1.25x | 437 |
| 2 | 1.50x | 525 |
| 3 | 1.75x | 612 |
Stack cap. A stack can never carry more than four times the base duration of remaining time. Buying past the cap is refused. Wait for the timer to drain before topping up.
Eligibility, in order:
- You own the place (curses: you don't own the target).
- The blessing exists and isn't disabled.
- Your church is tall enough.
- The patron god is awake on this island.
- You have the lumen for the (escalated) cost.
- The stack still has room (or, for curses, the target isn't already cursed).
Expiry. Every active rite runs to its scheduled end. A re-cast cancels the old expiry and re-arms a new one. On server restart, any rite whose timer has already passed is swept, even if its expiry event was missed.
Not yet shipped: per-god cooldowns, counter-cleanse, relics that consume lumen, alliance shrine pooling, blessings narrated inside attack-report flavour text, and rites cast by non-player governors.
