Entreaty

Petition

No XP cost. All players who take the conviction skill have access to this ability. Characters may perform this Ceremony to commune with their dedicated god and discover the amount of faith (!)l that is the “price” of an Entreaty. This Ceremony has a duration of 5 Minutes. This requires 1 Spirit Essence. The characters performing this Ceremony will need to complete the Weaving form and take it to a member of the Weaving team (Guardians of the Menhir) with the Essence requirement. The Weaving team will provide a response containing the effects, costs in Faith or any other requirements and any other information about the Entreaty created through this Ceremony.

Entreaty

No XP cost. All players who take the Conviction skill have access to this Ceremony.

People with Conviction may spend faith at the Menhir to perform an Entreaty with their Gods and ask for a Boon. 

What can I do with an Entreaty?

• Broaden horizons- You can seek out challenges in the form of roleplay effects to prove or test your faith. Show your God your dedication. Empower yourself- You can gain a boon to bolster or grant yourself skills which last up to a year. Please note, characters may only hold one such boon enhancement at a time.
• Empower an item- You can dedicate items to your God for effects aligned with their domain. Items may be enchanted up to a one-year duration with a specialist enchantments that are not covered by basic enchantments.
• Empower an area- Bless a small area in the name of your God, and let your fellow priests. The cost of this will be determined by the effect, its duration, and how long you wish to keep it before deployment. An area can only have one blessing effect at a time.
• Enquire Divine Wisdom- Characters can use the Entreaty to ask their God a question. The answer is dependent on the God´s knowledge and how relevant the question is to their domain. 

What can I not do with an Entreaty

• Resurrect the dead – Although godly power is great, it stops just short of returning a character to life in their original state.
• Flying – You may gain wings aplenty, but sadly, no power in this world will give you flight.
• Immediate total annihilation – You can do some awful stuff if you put your mind to it, but deployment is the crucial factor here. You cannot simply ask a God to destroy a target from afar. Their power goes to helping Haven, the people within need to take care of external threats. 
• Real world issues – The Gods cannot be used to suggest that things that affect a person’s out-of-character characteristics can be changed. We do not want a situation where someone with an out-of-character characteristic is asked in-character why they did not ask the Gods to change it.
• Time Travel – The Gods may share insight into the workings of the world if they so please, but they cannot move anyone through time to influence events from the past
                        or future. 
• Turn a character into a God – If you seek to join a God in their court, become an Aspect, or become a God yourself, this cannot happen immediately. But characters are free to make their case and start the process if the God is willing.

What do I need to do to perform an Entreaty?

As a brief overview, an Entreaty consists of 4 necessary parts:

• Faith – Faith is an offering to the Gods, both showing a character´s devotion and also empowering the Gods to perform miracles. In order to determine the faith cost of an Entreaty, a priest must first enact a ceremony called “Petition” to commune with the Gods through the Menhir and discover the cost. The given amount is the minimum to be met for an Entreaty to succeed. 
• The place and time – Unlike ceremonies, Entreaties may only be performed around a Menhir fragment. As the great power of the Gods is often in high demand, the Guardians have created a system of dedicated time slots which priests can book for their Entreaty. There are four slots available per hour. Once a priest/priests feel confident that they have the required faith, they may now visit the Guardians at the Circle of Weavers and book a time slot for their Weaving. If there are no available slots at this gathering, your weaving will be transferred to a following event, and the Guardian team will work with you to make sure this works for you and your team.
• The Priest(s) – An Entreaty requires priests to do their work and communicate their intent to their God. All priests participating should be dedicated to the God they are addressing.
• Dedication – No amount of faith or goodwill will cause things to just happen; no crowd of priests standing motionless can reach a God. Once the priest(s) are gathered in the right place at the right time, they will be able to commune with their chosen God through the Menhir, and combine all these elements for a Entreaty to communicate their wish.

Faith

Faith is requested to empower a God to grant a character´s request. Every person in Elandria has their faith, and a priest might acquire it through the Dedication ceremony to then use in an Entreaty. 

The amount of faith needed is determined via performing the Petition ceremony. A character can only have one Petition open at a time. 

Timeslots

If you wish to book a time slot during an event, pay a visit to the Circle of Weavers and speak to a Guardian. If there are time slots available, they will book your team in. Please inform a Guardian as soon as possible if your team can no longer make that time slot, as they are precious and may prevent others from having a chance to do a Weaving. 

If there are no slots available for this event, then you can book for the following event, and the Guardian team will do their best to help facilitate this for you. 

Between events, you may request a time slot for the following event via your nation support staff. Every nation will have an allotment of time slots for each event, however if these are not booked prior to the event then they will become available for people to use during the event. 

Alignment of an Entreaty 

All priests are dedicated to their primary God. Their God has a domain of what they are concerned with and what aspects of the world they interact with. Their domain should reflect the nature of the Entreaty. This does limit the concerns of the Gods to an extent- the Guardian is not for battlefield strategy, that would be the Warrior- even though both have a concept of fighting for those you hold dear.

While the Warrior might grant a boon to enhance a character´s strength in battle, the Guardian might grant a boon of wisdom to determine imminent threats. Both protect, but in the God´s respective way. 

Entreaty Process

Priests must first check in with the Guardian on duty for their slot, who can always be found at the Menhir Fragment. If, for whatever reason, a guardian is not present on arrival, please wait for them or ask another staff member for assistance on getting them; your Entreaty cannot work without a Guardian present! The Guardian will check what Entreaty you are performing, each team member’s God and if the required faith has been collected. Once this is done, you will be given the go-ahead to begin, or told if some element is totally insufficient for the Entreaty to work.

Each Entreaty is uniquely based on the participants, their way of worship and what they wish to achieve; however, there is a general guideline for how to go about doing one as follows:

• Say what you are doing – Tell the chosen God what you want to achieve and how you intend to do it. There are no rules on how to do this, only that you must do it, and that if understanding is not achieved, you will not succeed.
• Present your offering – While the faith has to be handed over, characters can feel free to incorporate this into their Entreaty if they wish to do so; for example, as a ceremonial offering, as part of a narrative. 
• Show your devotion– An Entreaty is a direct address of a God, and it should feel like one. This can be through chanting, the use of props, dance or whatever you fancy, but you must attempt to portray that you are beseeching a powerful being and show the relevant respect.
• Use all participants – In an Entreaty, there is no such thing as a bystander. It is not enough for one priest to do all the work while the rest stand around and watch. They must be proactively participating. This doesn’t mean everyone should be shouting prayers or chants at all times; it may be as simple as placing items in specific areas, or drawing the God´s symbol, or humming in harmony with another singer. Whatever it is, all priests must contribute to the Entreaty.

Doing an Entreaty

The player must visit the Guardians and book a time slot as per any Weaving.

All participants of the Entreaty must be devoted to the God the ceremony is dedicated to. Anyone who participates who is not must inform the Guardian before the Entreaty begins.

The characters may now do an Entreaty to their God to ask for a boon. The first step is to complete a Petition (described in the section above this).

In this ceremony, they may spend as much faith as they feel appropriate, but must meet the minimum given by the Weaving team. They should give the relevant amount of faith tokens to the Guardian before they begin. In the Entreaty, the character must state to which God they are doing the Entreaty to, and what they want from their God. They may not use Menhir to simply devote faith without asking for a boon as this is a ceremony already (Devotion) and is a waste of Menhir’s time.

The success of the Entreaty will vary, depending on the following factors:

• How much Faith they have devoted
• What Boon they have asked for
• If the Boon is relevant to the chosen God´s domain 
• How powerful the chosen God is
• How they have performed the Entreaty

The Marking of an Entreaty

The Entreaty may vary in success anywhere from exceptional success to catastrophic failure as per the Weaving results. An Entreaty´s overall success will be marked by a dedicated member of Menhirs Fate staff known as Guardians. The performance of an entreaty is assessed on three categories: expression, structure and cohesion.

Expression – The emphasis in this area is not about how well a player can roleplay, instead it focuses on if the priests have expressed their intention. Priests should ensure the Menhir knows what they are trying to achieve and how, using their god, they intend to go about enacting their will.

Ask yourself: “Have I stated what I want to do?”, “Have I stated how my sphere will go about doing this?”

Structure – In this area, the Entreaty will be marked on how it is designed. Elements such as the narrative of an Entreaty are considered and if it suits your god.

For example, two Entreaties wishing to complete the same task might look very different. An Entreaty to the Jester might be filled with bad jokes, silly puns, and slapstick comedy; an Entreaty to the Shadow would hold none of these elements, instead appearing darker and more secretive.

Cohesion – The Entreaty will be marked on how the Priests work together. Does everyone play their part? Do all Priests show they wish to complete the Entreaty? Does the Entreaty run smoothly?Contributing to an Entreaty does not mean having to speak, it can include being an actor in some spoken through play or playing an instrument. The focus is that everyone is involved, big or small.

Unlike Weavings, Entreaties can be completed by one Priest and additional Priests are not required. If you do bring additional Priests, they will be considered as part of the Cohesion element. Regardless of the marks for the Entreaty, these marks are never reflective on the player(s) and are never used in a negative manner.

What to Avoid Doing

While every priest might express their faith differently,  there are certain things that you should try to avoid, as they may count against your Entreaty if not:

• Disrespecting your God – The Gods are powerful, ancient and active in the world. They allow the citizens of Elandria to request boons- disrespecting them while doing so and mocking their help will have consequences, and it is highly unlikely your Entreaty will succeed.
• Disrespecting Menhir – Menhir is an ancient and powerful sentient spirit, and it acts as a connection to the Gods. If you are rude to it or its Guardians, you will feel its wrath… and it’s highly unlikely your request/ Entreaty will reach your God.
• Changing the nature of your Entreaty – It is highly important that you do the Entreaty you set out to do, as negotiated with the guardians prior to starting. If your Entreaty appears to deviate from this brief; your Entreaty will fail.
• Exceeding the allotted time slot – Menhir Entreaties should take roughly five to eight minutes. The Fragment will have lighting and a bell toll that will warn the players when five minutes have passed. Taking up more of Menhirs’ precious time will cost you dearly and may mean that your Entreaty fails, or that you get expelled from the Fragment before even completing it. Take care to limit your Entreaty accordingly.
• Making modern or real-world references in your Entreaty – this should go without saying, as we encourage all players to fully immerse themselves in the Live role-play experience as a general rule. However, doing so in Menhir is particularly bad and will definitely count against your Entreaty. Please refrain from things like singing obviously modern songs, bringing your phones to the Fragment. This doesn’t include the use of accessibility aids such as glasses, wheelchairs, crutches or walking aids, although we will always celebrate attempts to blend them into the environment, you will not get penalised for having them.
• Active rebellion against the working –  This is an Entreaty, a declaration of will and intent. Any priest in the Fragment who openly expresses dissent (for example, saying “I don’t want to do this!” or actively looking bored or disinterested during the Entreaty) will have a negative effect on the Entreaty, which can in turn lead to an overall failure.

The Result

During each Entreaty, at least one guardian will be watching. They will assess the Entreaty and determine the result. This is a judgement based on several key criteria reflecting such as the relevance of the performance to the God addressed, and is NEVER a judgement on the Weavers themselves. There are 5 possible results:

• Exceptional success – Your Entreaty went incredibly well! Not only have you managed to achieve your intended goal, but you may also receive a further beneficial effect that may benefit the priest themselves, their intended targets or their nation!
• Success – Your Entreaty succeeded! You will get the desired and intended effect that you asked for.
• Partial success – While this was a close attempt, you have not quite managed to achieve the desired result. You may get a limited or smaller effect than intended, or you may get the full effect, but with some unexpected negative effects as well.
• Failure –  Your Entreaty has not worked. There will be no positive or negative effects to this outcome. The faith has been used, and if you wish to repeat the Entreaty at a later time, a new petition will have to be performed.
• Catastrophic failure – Your Entreaty has failed very badly. Not only have you not succeeded in the intended outcome, but there will likely be some major negative effects that can cause trouble for either the priests themselves, their intended targets, or their nation! Depending on the severity, this may even include death.

After each Entreaty, the Guardian will also deliver feedback to the team. This feedback will follow a set guideline and will be directed towards providing constructive advice on future Entreaties, not on subjective critique.

Fragment Wards

All Menhir Fragments are places of great power that are warded to keep others out while working your Entreaty. To begin, the priests must open the Fragment by simply expressing to Menhir that this is their will. Once the priest team is inside, they may choose to either raise the wards or leave them open. 

When the Fragments wards are raised, it will prevent all characters which are not part of the Entreaty (Guardians exempt) from passing into immediate space next to the Menhir. The wards are a transparent barrier of Wyrd, and while the wards are not themselves visible, when they are raised, there will be several props to represent this (glowing rocks at the side of the tent). If, for whatever reason, another priest or weaving team wishes to break into the wards to prevent the Entreaty from completing, they must meet the following requirements to breach the wards:

A group of weavers must make a consistent 30-second Rite that is uninterrupted, around the Weaving Circle tent. This may be performed by any weaver regardless of their sphere and is an ad lib Rite.

All Weavers attempting to break the wards must be working together as a cohesive team.

There must be at least double the number of Weavers attempting to break the ward than there are priests around the Fragment.

At least one of the Weavers outside the tent must match or better the weaving level of the greatest Weaver within the Fragment. That Weaver MUST present themselves as the leader(s) of the effort, and MUST get the attention of the presiding Guardian. 

If the ward breaking is successful, then the wards will drop. Either the Weavers inside the Fragment will leave of their own accord, or if this has not happened within the next 30 seconds, Menhir will expel all characters from the Fragment, repelling them away.

Fighting will not be tolerated within the Fragment. 

Please note, this is mostly for safety reasons, as there are many obstacles and props within the Fragment that we do not wish to be damaged by fighting.