The god

The camera and the god hand

• The mouse drives the camera on its own: the wheel dollies from 4 m out to 5 km, the middle button orbits, the right button drags the ground under the view, and W A S D pans. Turn with the middle button when you want to look around one spot, because the camera pivots on the ground under the god hand rather than on the middle of the screen.
• Over the world there is no arrow cursor at all: the god hand is the pointer, it hovers whatever sits under the mouse ray, and a target you already hold is kept until it is 60 pixels away while a new one is only picked up within 40. Aim where you want the action to land rather than where the hand appears to look, because the hand rests on the first valid surface under the ray and that point is what every click acts on.
• Zoom out past about 120 m and the hand hides, the ordinary arrow cursor comes back, and the map icons become clickable. Click a town icon to fly the camera to it or your own town to come home, then zoom back in to get the hand back for work on the ground.
• Hold the left button on the Creature for a third of a second and the camera drops into a close view while the hand shrinks for petting, where a slow drag strokes it and a fast one slaps it, with 400 pixels a second the top stroke speed and 2500 the bottom slap speed. Praise and punish deliberately while the Creature is being shown the act, because the stroke or slap is tied to whatever it is doing at that moment.
• Choose a leash (Learning, Compassion or Aggression) from the Creature’s panel in the HUD, and the flag can then be planted with F or a double click on bare ground, while a short click on the Creature with a leash up gives it an order. Plant the flag around the work you want done before you leave it alone, because its search shrinks to that ring and it walks itself home when it drifts outside.

Picking up and throwing

• A short still click inspects what is under the hand and a hold past a fifth of a second grabs it, even if the mouse drifts a few pixels. Do not hold the button out of curiosity, because the grab is not undone when you let go and the next click is what sets the load down.
• Timber comes to the hand from a storehouse or from a loose pile within about 2 m, and a standing tree within 2.5 m can be plucked out of the ground as a felled log. Pinch wood from the storehouse rather than chasing piles around, and pluck trees only where you actually want the ground cleared.
• Throw or set down is decided by the flick: a mouse speed above 1500 pixels a second within the last six tenths of a second throws the load, ramping up to a maximum launch speed, while a slow release below about 1.5 m off the ground places it gently. Flick for distance and lower the hand for care, because a gentle release also pens a carried animal and a hard throw turns a villager into a ragdoll.
• A villager you drop becomes whatever is under them within about 4 m: a foundation makes a Builder, a field row a Farmer, a free workplace its own trade, a market stall a Stallkeeper, a house a Homekeeper, a pond bank a Fisherman, and a bare rock or tree a Miner or Woodcutter. Jobs given by hand are orders that stick, so staff a new site with the hand instead of waiting for volunteers. (In testing.)
• Felling is dangerous for the worker doing it: a woodcutter can be killed by the tree they cut, with roughly a 1 percent chance at their lowest skill falling away to none at full skill. Put your experienced woodcutters on the standing trees, since every swing trains the same skill that keeps them safe and speeds the work. (In testing.)

Building by hand

• Every building goes down as a ghost you can turn and slide, and the ghost plus the homes near it show a smiling or frowning face for the appeal the finished building will carry. Believe the faces and the red refusal line, because the preview warns you before the commitment rather than after it.
• Placement is gated by ground you hold: the game refuses a site outside your influence and a site on another settlement’s land, and it tells you which of the two it is. Push the border out with buildings you wanted anyway before you plan an outlying farm, because the ghost will not pass until the ground is yours.
• You can finish a build yourself: click cargo onto an unfinished site to hand the goods into its ledger, or press and hold over the site to add labour worth four builders. Hold through the last stretch of a building you need now and leave the hauling to villagers, because progress never outruns the goods actually delivered.
• Only villagers with no trade volunteer for a site, rolling every four seconds with a one in four chance each time a foundation wants hands. Keep a few people unassigned in a growing town, or every pair of hands will be locked into a trade and the next foundation will sit empty.
• The Aqueduct card lets you draw a channel with the wall tool from a spring intake, and water only flows downhill inside the tool’s own limits on grade and clearance. A building that drinks from a channel is fed when a supplied stretch passes within its tap reach with the water level with or above the tap, so route the channel from the high intake down past the mill and watch it turn wet. (In testing.)

Miracles and how they are paid for

• Pick a miracle in the reliquary band, choose a tier on the I, II and III notches, then make one short still click on the ground to conjure an orb into the god hand, and the belief is spent at that moment. Conjure only with an empty hand and good ground under the cursor, because a full hand or a cursor off the world refuses the summon.
• Belief starts at 60 and stays capped at 500 until the Fanum is raised, which lifts the cap to 750, 1250 and then 2000 and raises your sacred rank with it. Villagers who visit a worship building pay belief into the pool and answered world events add more, so keep shrines and the Fanum where people already pass.
• Each miracle is Sealed, Revealed or Bound: deeds, answered petitions and, for the compound miracles, landing every leaf miracle inside 15 seconds and 1500 cm reveal one, and only an offering at the Fanum binds it. Offer belief for anything the band shows half lit, and raise the Fanum before chasing second and third tier miracles, because those tiers need sacred rank 2 and 3.
• An orb can be thrown to burst where it lands, or held still over a spot to pour, which drains it steadily and applies small repeated beats under the hand. Throw for one decisive blow and pour when you want the effect applied again and again, such as topping up fields or nursing a line of fire.
• Water puts out fires and records watered days that help a field for three days, Heal restores health and breaks a fever but never touches mustered soldiers, and Fire can burn a building down over about 45 seconds of game time. Remember that a completed Fanum will not catch fire at all, so keep fire miracles away from your own temple and treat a lived-in house fire as a world event to answer. (In testing.)

Alignment and corruption

• Your standing runs on two axes, Mercy for what you do to bodies and Providence for what you do to the village and its land, and only the worse of the two is shown on the burnt parchment. Do not expect grand buildings to cover for cruelty, because the worse axis is the one that counts and a generous builder who kills freely still reads as a killer.
• Outcomes are charged, never the casting: a killing takes 0.01 of Mercy, a villager burned by your fire 0.003, turning residents out of a home 0.005, and breaking a fever gives back 0.004. Watch the running total rather than the single act, because forty killings drag Mercy a long way down even for a god who builds constantly.
• Village work pays Providence: placing a building adds 0.012, dousing a fire 0.02, watering a field 0.01 and conjuring food 0.01. Make honest work your main income of standing, because good deeds on an axis you have already driven negative land at only half value.
• Repentance is slow by design: Providence only drifts back toward zero when mean faith is at least 0.35 and either rising or you are present, and the deepest harm you ever did is kept forever. Stay near a settlement you have hurt and keep answering its events, because distance plus falling faith is what holds the wound open.
• Damnation is multiplied by the ground you own, so your corruption follows your border: it darkens the land, scatters scorched decals near the camera, and stains the sky over the ground you hold. Keep your worst acts away from towns you mean to keep, because the stain settles on the territory rather than on the deed.

Influence and territory

• Every standing building pushes your border out, and the town centre’s own reach grows with the number of buildings and the appeal around it, up to a default ceiling of 160 cells. Put the buildings you wanted anyway on the side you mean to claim, because the ground follows what stands on it.
• Roads cost nothing, need no builder, and are walkable the moment you draw them, and they also carry influence and cut the time your people spend walking. Run a road toward a resource before you build the outpost that works it, because the road brings the border with it.
• Your land wears a blue ring and a god-run rival’s wears gold, and the whole border fades from view when you zoom out to the map. Check the ring colour before you plan a build near a neighbour, because gold ground is not yours to place on.
• A town you hold can change hands: every town is scored for its own impressiveness, regard is tallied again each day, and an outlying town whose owner is outshone can defect to the leading contender. Keep your border towns impressive and answer their troubles, because help deeds raise regard and the town you neglect is the one that leaves. (In testing.)
• Impressiveness gives diminishing returns: copies of the same building score less each time, and the score a rival must beat grows with the number of buildings a town already has. Build a varied and costly town rather than a row of identical monuments, because variety and cost both add while repetition does not. (In testing.)

World events

• Crises and blessings roll from your villages’ own numbers every two game hours, with at most one new event a day and three open at once, plus extra room as the population grows. Read the card when it appears, because the window is short and a severe event costs more when nobody answers it.
• Each card names the deed that answers it, and the answers are drawing on your own powers: setting a villager down in the right place, throwing an animal, dousing a fire, watering a field, placing a building or healing the sick. Do the deed where enough people can see it, because an answer with too few witnesses counts as unseen and pays you nothing.
• If you do nothing, the village may solve the event itself on a roll, and otherwise the consequence lands: people die, rows rot, head is lost, food disappears or a villager walks away for good. Treat an unanswered severe event as a real loss and answer the cheap ones too, because the resolved card is the only record you get.
• A lived-in house that catches fire starts the Fire world event instead of burning down at once, and the house can still be saved while the window is open. Douse it with water or let the villagers handle it, because a severe fire reaches every house it can and the first one is only the beginning. (In testing.)
• Results stay on the panel for 12 hours of game time, an urgent card makes the panel pulse, and a town that is not yours never becomes your card, your belief or your unlock. Spend your attention on your own settlements and let a rival’s god answer its own crises.

Seasons and weather

• The clock runs 1200 seconds to a day, three days to a month and three months to a season, so a season is nine days and a new game opens in Summer. Plan your big builds and campaigns by the season, because the calendar is short and winter changes what your people can do.
• Each season rolls its own weather and holds it for five to fifteen minutes of the day clock, and a storm can approach along the wind as a front whose threat rises before the rain lands. Watch the sky before you send people far from home, since the front arrives well before the downpour does.
• Rain above a third of full intensity waters your fields, using the same record the water miracle writes, and sustained rain puts out fires. Let a good rain do the work of a water miracle and save the belief for a drought, when no rain is coming.
• Most lightning is a distant flash inside the clouds rather than a ground strike, and a strike that does land can set a tree burning with about a 35 percent chance within 2500 cm. Keep musters and woodcutters out of a stand of trees during a storm, because the strike lands in a ring around you and standing trees catch.
• Winter freezes the ponds so nobody can fish, and pond stock only regrows in Spring and Summer, never below a quarter of its capacity. Fish hard in the warm seasons and keep a fisherman on a pond your own settlement holds, because a pond on another settlement’s ground is closed to your people and winter stops the catch. (In testing.)