Ophanim

Ophanim is an Elder God focused on using the shadow to scare humanity into the arms of his faith, then making them more and more fanatical until they are nothing but empty husks dedicated to his service. Ophanim starts with a Supplicant agent and 2 recruitment points. He initially has only 1 agent slot (taken up by Supplicant) and has 5 agent slots by the time he fully awakes.

He is held back by 7 seals. The 'minimum world panic from god awakening' starts at 0% and progresses to 75% by turn 400 when the last seal breaks and Ophanim fully awakes. His max Power starts at 1 and reaches 8 when he awakes.

In addition to the listed effects, each seal that breaks gives 1 current and maximum power.

## Ophanim's Faith

Ophanim's Faith is a powerful tool for its people to fight back shadow, as well as being the main way you impose your will on the world. An Ophanim's Faith modifier reduces the location's shadow by 0.2% for every percentage point of Faith.

A location with the Ophanim's Faith modifier will normally get +1% growth if any adjacent location has an Ophanim's Faith modifier.

Locations in one of Ophanim's Theocracies will have a baseline Faith growth rate of +3%, which stacks with other modifiers such as shadow and adjacent faith.

If a location with an Ophanim's Faith modifier has over 10% shadow, that Ophanim's Faith modifier will get an additional +4% growth for 'fear of our shadow'.

If a location with an Ophanim's Faith modifier does not have shadow but is adjacent to a location with at least 25% shadow that's capable of spreading it, that Ophanim's Faith modifier will get an additional +2% growth for 'fear of nearby shadow'.

If world shadow is above 10%, all Ophanim's Faith modifiers will get an additional +1% growth for 'fear of world shadow' if they aren't getting one of the stronger growth boosts from shadow.

Ophanim's Faith shrinks based on the ruler's awareness, decreasing by 5% per turn at 100% awareness.

Ophanim's Faith can randomly spread to new locations that are adjacent to locations which already had Ophanim's Faith modifiers. This can only happen if Faith is above 100% and the neighbouring ruler is fully unaware, and becomes more likely as the neighbour's shadow increases.

## Ophanim's Doubt

Doubters of Ophanim's word may appear in locations that have a lower Faith than their neighbours. When a location with Ophanim's Faith is next to a location with higher faith, an invisible worldwide counter increases based on the difference. When that counter breaks a certain threshold (with some randomness sprinkled in), Doubt appears in the location that broke it, and the counter resets.

Doubt starts at 1% and grows by 2/turn at base, but it grows much faster if the location's ruler is aware (+2.5/turn if 50% aware, +5/turn if 100% aware). Doubt reduces Faith by 1% per turn for every 30% Doubt.

If Doubt reaches 100% in a location, it will spread to any adjacent locations that have Ophanim's faith greater than zero and less than 295%.

In a location which is part of a Theocracy or the Dark Empire, agents can reduce Doubt with the command-based challenge "Root out Doubters"

Complexity: 25; Profile: 0 ; Menace: 5; XP: 42

This reduces Doubt in the location by up to 60% at the cost of reducing population by 1 for every 5% of Doubt removed.

In a non-Faithful/non-Dark-Empire location, agents can only reduce doubt with the intrigue-based challenge 'Sectarian Violence'.

Complexity: 50 ; Profile: 10; Menace: 15; XP: 72

This can only remove up to 40% charge from the Doubt modifier (removing the modifier if it brings the Doubt modifier's charge to 0%). It also reduces the Ophanim's Faith modifier by an amount equal to the amount of Doubt removed, increases unrest by a third of the amount of Doubt removed, and reduces population by the amount of Doubt removed. Also, this challenge is only valid/viable if the Faith modifier is stronger than the Doubt modifier- this challenge may be cancelled partway through if the Doubt grows higher than the Faith.

If an action to remove Doubt reduces the population enough, it is possible to destroy the settlement in the process. If Faith hits 0, that location's Doubt will also vanish, and they'll be vulnerable to new attempts to spread the Faith.

## Perfected Locations

When the Ophanim's Faith modifier in a location reaches 300%, that location becomes permanently 'perfected'. This has a number of beneficial effects.

Unrest in that location will rapidly drop to 0 and stay there.
Ophanim's Doubt can no longer arise in that location, and any existing doubt modifier will rapidly drop to 0 charge.
Every turn, the ruler of that location goes to 0% awareness if they weren't already at 0% awareness.
If that location has an army, that army's strength is increased by 25%.

This also has certain effects that may or may not be beneficial. Perfected locations' rulers will lose enshadowment. Deep one cults will gain a -5 growth modifier ("Ophanim hates mutants"). Notably, madness will *not* be removed by perfection.

## Ophanim's Powers

#### Start Faith

Cost: 0 Power

Can only be used on a human settlement with infiltration > 0%.

Starts an Ophanim's Faith modifier at a location with 1% charge.

#### Sleepless Labour

Cost: 1 Power

Can only target an agent performing a stat-based^ challenge who has more than 2 HP remaining.

"Increases the task completion progress of one of your agents by 20 at the cost of 2 HP (note that agents heal to full on level up)."

^a challenge where rate of progress is affected by one or more agent stats (so not "Rest and Recover", "Lay Low", "Recruit Sellsword", etc.)

This power cannot progress magic channeling challenges.

#### Peace and Order

Cost: 2 Power

Can only target a location with an existing Ophanim's Faith modifier AND devastation > =20%.

"Increases the level of an existing Ophanim's Faith modifier in a location by 50%, by healing the devastation caused by war (up to 40%)"

#### Swift of Foot

Cost: 1 Power

Must target an agent who has already moved this turn. Allows that agent to move one more time this turn. Can be used repeatedly on one agent in the same turn.

#### Theocracy

Cost: 0 Power

Must be cast on a city (or non-city capital location) which has Ophanim's Faith > 150% in a human society which has not already been taken over.

"Cause the faithful to rise up and take control of their society. *Any location with Ophanim's Faith <100% will oppose this.* Once under your control faith will grow faster, and you can command the society to attack others to spread your faith. Adds 20% temporary world panic."

When you use Theocracy on some nation, it renames the nation from "Kingdom/Queendom of LOCATION\_NAME" to "Faithful of LOCATION\_NAME".

Any towns or cities that are not at 100% faith will rebel, and will take "associated" villages and other minor locations with them, even if those minor locations have more then 100% faith. Similarly, low faith minor locations will not rebel so long as their associated city has more than 100% faith.

#### Declare Heretic

Cost: 1 Power

"Must target an agent with the 'Infamous' trait in a location with a ruler with awareness > 0% either here or in a neighboring location"

Kill the targeted agent to remove the awareness of the local ruler and all rulers of neighboring locations, as well as all doubt in that agent's current location (in addition to normal Infamous trait effects on death). Halves temporary world panic.

#### Excise Doubt

Cost: 0 Power

Causes an army (if one is available and has no current ask) in a nation you control to raze the targeted human settlement you control. This power can only be targeted on a location with Ophanim's Doubt.

#### Call to Serve

Cost: 3 Power, plus a recruitment point

"Must target a human settlement with Ophanim's Holy Order. Requires a recruitment point."

"Creates an Acolyte in the service of Ophanim's Holy Order, who can build temples and automatically carry out tasks based on how you assign tenets. Consumes a recruitment point."

#### Crusade

Cost: 0 Power

Must be cast on a human settlement.

Causes all societies which you have turned into Ophanim's Theocracies to begin a war against the society which the targeted settlement belongs to (if they are not already at war with anyone).

#### Empower Slaves

Cost: 2 Power

"Must target an army from a perfected city"

Heals a human army from a perfected city for 50% of their missing HP.

#### Perfect Servant

Cost: 4 Power, plus a recruitment point and an agent slot

Must target a hero whose home location is perfected by Ophanim. Requires that there is a free agent slot.

Take permanent control of a hero whose home location has been perfected by Ophanim

#### Smite

Cost: 7 Power

Can be cast on any location.

Utterly destroys a city and potentially other nearby locations within 3 hexes on the map.

Any units in a destroyed location take 50% damage.

## Strategy

Ophanim has the fewest agents of any god, but can use Sleepless Labour to get more mileage out of them. Keep track of your agents' XP, as they level up quite quickly at low levels and every level-up means a full heal. Because Sleepless Labour gives a flat amount of progress, it's especially useful when using skills that your agents are not specialized in - Ophanim can go a long time without a dedicated Lore agent by using Sleepless Labour to do Lore challenges with your other agents.

Awareness hits Ophanim harder than any of the other gods, and managing awareness is crucial in any location you're hoping to spread the faith to. In the early game, getting rid of any Holy Order tenets that spread awareness is a priority. If you can force the Chosen One to retreat in combat, you can increase their liking of Danger, making them less likely to warn the world. Once awareness has taken root, you can use Brutal Assassination or Silent Assassination to replace them with an unaware ruler. Declare Heretic is a very powerful tool, and you shouldn't be afraid to go down to 0 or 1 spare recruitment point by sacrificing agents - if you're not spending your recruitment points, they're not doing anything for you.

Doubt can be managed before it crops up by making sure there are no sharp differences in Faith between neighbours. You have full control over when to start your faith, and you may wish to partially infiltrate an entire nation at once to make sure it all grows at a similar speed. A Theocracy capital only needs 50% more faith than the amount needed to stop them rebelling - you can get this 50% quite quickly by doing the Enshadow challenge once or twice on the would-be Theocracy capital.

Relying on nearby shadow to spread your faith is dangerous for the same reason - it will inevitably cause the locations next to the shadow to outgrow the more distant locations' Faith, fostering Doubt. One strategy is to form your faith far away from the Elder Tomb and the locations you're enshadowing, growing the faith purely based on world shadow and faithful neighbours. You can proceed to consume half the world in shadow and the other half in faith, spreading your faith and your Dark Empire by the sword once you have a strong foundation. Another strategy is to use shadow to form your Theocracy as fast as possible and aggressively tamp down the resulting doubt before it causes too much trouble.

Inquisitor is the most popular Supplicant trait for Ophanim, as purging Doubt is always a high priority. Duality is challenging to use, as it risks a doubt explosion if you use the two sides of it close to one-another.

## Victory Text

The art and text displayed upon winning a game depends on which source of victory points is biggest, in line with the various achievements for winning the game in certain ways.

### Shadow:

The Darkness now drowns the world, and the light which shines is harsh, cold. Sterile. Shining like a star in the night sky, entirely out of reach.

### Madness:

Humanity cannot bear perfection. The imperfect mind cannot withstand the infinite demands of Ophanim, the complete rejection of what makes a living breathing creature alive. Unable to cope with what is asked of them, they break, and slip into insanity.

### Dark Empire:

Ophanim's victory is complete. Humanity has been brought to heel, and the nations of the world reforged into Ophanim's vision of perfection. Empty, cold and rigid, these societies have imposed the terrible and cruel will of their god on the world, devoid of anything which makes life worth living.

### Dead Population:

The world is finally free from imperfection. It took the destruction of almost all of humanity, the devastation of their nations and empires, but the work is complete. Ophanim's will has been done, and the few survivors living still look on in horror at the fragments which are left of the world.

### Ice Age (dead population with a low enough world temperature):

Glittering like a crystal, the world has been reduced to ice by Ophanim. The god of light has brought no warmth, and the cold sun gleams off the frozen remains of what was once a green and fertile world.

### Deep Ones:

Perhaps the Deep Ones will meet Ophanim's exacting demands more than humanity ever could. Perhaps they too will fall short, and become their god's next victims, once their usefulness is done.