Deep Ones

Initially, the only Deep One presence on the map will be 2 of Deep One Cults in different locations.

## Deep One Cult

A Deep One Cult is a modifier on a human location.

A Deep One Cult modifier has not just a charge but also profile and menace levels. By default, the charge will go up by 1/turn, the profile will go up by ?/turn (base value might be somewhere between 0.3 and 0.5?), and the menace will go up by ?/turn (base value might be somewhere around 0.9). The base rates of increase in menace and profile seem to differ between cults, possibly depending on how many human settlements are adjacent to the location with the cult.

A cult's profile controls how far away it can be seen by heroes, and its menace contributes to those heroes' motivation to go after it. Heroes have a might-based quest "Decimate Deep Ones" which will halve all 3 of a cult's main numbers (charge/profile/menace).

A cult will gain profile and menace less slowly if the locations near it are enshadowed and/or infiltrated. Each increase in infiltration or enshadowment of the cult's location or of an adjacent human location will reduce the profile/menace gain of the cult. If the cult's location and all adjacent human locations are infiltrated and/or enshadowed, the cult will gain profile and menace at minimum rates of 0.1/turn and 0.2/turn respectively.

When a Deep One Cult's charge gets high enough, it starts affecting its location in various ways.

If the charge is > 50, it reduces security by 1; if the charge is > 150, it reduces security by 2.

If the charge is > 100, it starts to slowly increase the location's shadow and madness. The madness from a deep one cult can only go up to a certain level, and that madness ceiling gets higher as the deep one cult's charge increases further.

Also, if the charge is > 100 and the location's ruler's personal shadow is > 50%, the Call of the Deep challenge becomes available.

Finally, if a Deep One Cult's charge reaches 300, it takes over the location, razing the human settlement and replacing it with a Deep One Sanctum. This converts all remaining human population in the city into deep ones, who are moved to new Abyssal City locations in nearby ocean tiles.

A location with a Deep One Cult will have the following challenges.

## Deep One Sanctum

When a Deep One Cult reaches 300 charge, the human location which it was in is razed. It is replaced by a Deep One Sanctum. Also, a nearby ocean location is turned into an Abyssal City. Roughly 3/4 of the human location's previous population is converted into Deep One population in the Abyssal Cities, and the rest are killed (adding some Death to the location).

Finally, when a location is turned into a Deep One Sanctum, its ruler is suddenly turned into a non-commandable Deep One agent.

**Critically, every unit of population in an Abyssal City counts for 0.075 victory points.**

A Deep One Sanctum is always fully enshadowed, and it does seem to be able to spread shadow to neighboring human settlements.

Deep One Sanctums have the following challenges:

**Lay Low** - see the Challenges#Lay Low

It does not seem to be possible to reduce an adjacent and infiltrated human location to 0 population through spamming Propagation.

Abyssal Cities have the following challenges:

**Lay Low** - see the Challenges#Lay Low

The Abyssal City's population is listed on the POI near the lower left corner of the screen.

If a lot of Deep One population would be concentrated in a single Abyssal City location, the Abyssal City will often convert another adjacent ocean location into another Abyssal City and split its large amount of Deep One population between itself and the new Abyssal City.

## Spreading Deep Ones

Deep One agents wander around performing Conceal Deep Ones or Human Appearance in the locations of existing Deep One Cults or else starting Deep One Cults in new locations.
A Deep One agent creates a new Deep One Cult through a unique lore-based challenge with 60 complexity.

The only way for the player to directly create a new Deep One Cult in a particular location is by converting a malign catch modifier into a Deep One Cult. This challenge can only be performed by an enshadowed hero who has been recruited as an agent.