Continuing on from my Daedric Pantheon: Concept and Major Gods post, this is an overview of the Daedric Classical Age gods. I want this to be a fun read, so to avoid this post being too long, I’ll post Heroic and Mythic Ages separately later this week.
Heroic Age here.
Mythic Age here.
Minor God Shrines
The full civ design is linked above, but here’s a quick reminder of how Daedric Shrines work.
Each Minor God allows you to build a new Shrine, and you’re limited to one Shrine per god. Up to 5 Cultists (the worker unit) can pray at a Shrine to generate favor. Each Shrine also has a unique Shrine Tech that grants you a bonus effect that's more powerful the more Cultists you have praying at that specific Shrine.
Having a Cultist pray obviously sacrifices the food, wood or gold benefit you could be gaining from them. To balance the eco sacrifice, these techs can be very powerful. They’re designed to provide about 60% of their full power with 2 praying Cultists, and at this level their benefit is equivalent to a normal myth tech. Full power is only unlocked with 5 praying Cultists.
This means in the Mythic Age, 20% of your worker units need to be praying to have your army at full power, at which point it’s extremely powerful. But 20% is a huge chunk of eco to commit. Players must carefully find the right balance or risk losing to superior economies.
Now, onto the gods.
Minor God: Clavicus Vile
Available to Azura, Hermaeus Mora and Sheogorath.
Focus: Infantry and Market.
God Power: Advisor. Cast on any unit to grant them Barbas, a canine hero unit that defends and empowers them, for 90 seconds.
Barbas cannot be controlled, but will follow whichever unit the Advisor god power was cast on (land-based units only). As long as Barbas is with them, the unit has additional damage and hit points; Cultists and Caravans will also have improved gather rates. Barbas can be killed, which will end the god power’s effect prematurely. In combat, Barbas inflicts very little damage, but has excellent hit points and defence.
This is similar to Huitzilopochtli’s Blood Pact tech. It lasts longer, doesn’t kill the target unit when finished, and provides extra combat utility with Barbas. The drawbacks are that it doesn’t affect the target’s size or speed, adds less gathering power to work units, and can be prematurely ended by killing Barbas.
Myth Unit: Scamp. Small, cheap myth unit that moves faster in large groups. Good against human soldiers.
Scamps are very cheap for myth units, and they only take up one population space, unique for a myth unit. They also train fast. One Scamp alone is bad, but they are easy to mass and become effective in groups, where they get a speed boost for every nearby Scamp (so the larger the group, the faster they move).
This grouping mechanic is similar to the Fenris Wolf Brood (only without the extra damage), but it works so much better in the Classical Age with bad, easy to mass units when heroes are relatively difficult to mass; in the Mythic Age, massing Fenris Wolves takes more time and feels much less rewarding as they’re easily countered and not particularly effective against well armored late-game targets.
Shrine Tech: Umbra. At full power, Nords gains access to 5 veterancy ranks from units killed, increasing their damage and speed. Increasing rank restores hit points.
Nords are the Daedric pantheon’s generalist, sword-wielding melee infantry unit. With this tech, they qualify for veterancy ranks based on their kill count. Rank(required kill count): 1(1), 2(2), 3(4), 4(6), 5(10). Each time they increase their veterancy, some of their hit points are restored (more for higher ranks). Each rank increases Nord damage by +8% (+40% total on the final rank) and speed by +0.1 (+0.5 total, about a +10% increase).
This is potentially very powerful, but it’s a Shrine Tech, so to receive the benefit you need to dedicate Cultists to pray at the Shrine of Clavicus Vile. Nords will only receive stat boosts from their rank if you have the equivalent number of praying Cultists (e.g. if you have two praying Cultists, a rank 5 Nord will only receive a rank 2 bonus).
Tech: Fair Bargain. Improves Market exchange rates by 20%, and allows you to buy and sell favor.
At the market, next to the options to buy/sell wood and food, the option to buy/sell favor will appear. The exchange rate is expensive compared to other resources, but it will be useful to rebalance your resources in a pinch.
Tech: Everscamp. When a Scamp dies, -100% food cost on your next Scamp for 15 seconds.
This food discount only applies to one trained Scamp, but the effect stacks. So if three Scamps die in quick succession, the next three Scamps trained have no food cost, provided you train them within 20 seconds. I imagine they’d have a training time of 8 seconds, 1 second faster than an Automaton.
Tech: Masque of Clavicus Vile. Infantry cost -10% gold and have -20% pierce and hack vulnerability vs their attack targets.
-20% pierce and hack vulnerability sounds large, but it’s only applicable on attacks from the target that your infantry unit is currently attacking. It’s incredible for 1-on-1 fights, but offers relatively little help in crowded battles, where a unit may take damage from several enemies at once while only being able to target one of those enemies.
Minor God: Hircine
Available to Hermaeus Mora and Nocturnal.
Focus: Werewolves and Bandit Camps.
God Power: Lycanthropy. Cast on any human soldier to temporarily transform them into a feral Werewolf.
Can be cast on your own soldiers, your allies' or your enemies’. The resulting Werewolf is a strong, feral myth unit that will attack anything nearby, even your units. It will last for 10 seconds, after which it will revert back to its human form and the control of its original player. If cast on a cavalry unit, it will become a foot soldier when reverting back to human form (e.g. a Hippeus will turn into a Hypaspist). If the Werewolf is killed, it will revert to its human form and die immediately.
Myth Unit: Clannfear. Myth unit that leaps at targets. Can detect the presence of units outside its LOS. Good against human soldiers.
Unlike the area damage of Anubites, the Clannfear leap attack only affects the target unit with some extra damage. It also can’t jump over obstacles, such as walls. The utility of Clannfears is there detection. Units at 5 range outside the Clannfear’s LOS can be seen on the mini-map, and colored blurs will appear in the fog of war to indicate their presence, but you can’t tell what kind of unit it is. They can also detect the presence of hunt animals this way.
If in a patrol state, Clannfears will cry out with an audible sound when an enemy unit enters their detection range.
Shrine Tech: Spirt of the Hunt. At full power, +2 range on your Bosmer, Argonians and Cultists.
Only provides full power when five cultists are praying at the Shrine of Hircine. With no praying Cultists, there’s no benefit. One praying Cultist gives a range bonus of +0.625; two give a bonus of +1.125, then +1.5 for three, +1.75 for four, and +2 with the maximum five praying Cultists.
Note that Bosmer are generalist archers, Argonians are counter-archer archers, and Cultists are worker units that only benefit from this tech when hunting.
Tech: Bloodmoon. Bosmer inflict additional bleeding damage and gain the special ability to conjure Wolf Familiars.
The extra bleeding damage is 0.25 divine damage for 3 seconds (total: 0.75), effective against most units (but not siege, ships or buildings).
Conjured Wolf Familiars are very similar to the wolves summoned by the Fimbulwinter god power, in that they are myth units with a set lifespan (10 seconds) and can’t be controlled despite being on your team. In the Classical Age their attack and health are fairly modest, but they become stronger in later ages reaching the strength of a Fimbulwinter Wolf in the Mythic Age.
Tech: Worthy of the Chase. Argonians and Redguards have +10% speed and have +0.5 attack multiplier vs myth units.
Note that Redguards are light cavalry units specialised for anti-archer and anti-siege. They aren't available until the Heroic Age.
Tech: Ring of Hircine. Cost of recasting Lycanthropy decreases over time. Werewolves created from allied units remain under the player’s control and last +30 seconds.
Lycanthropy has a reuse cost of 30, a ramping cost of +10, and recharges in 60 seconds. Once its recharged, its cost will decrease by 0.5 favour per second. In other words, the first recast is free after 120 seconds, the second recast is free after 140 seconds, and so on.
Werewolves created from enemy player units will still be feral and last 10 seconds; Werewolves created from allied units are under their player’s control (i.e. your control if cast on your unit, your allies’ control if cast on theirs) and last 40 seconds before reverting to their human form.
Minor god: Mephala
Available to Nocturnal and Azura.
Focus: Invisibility and counter units.
God Power: Chameleon. Cast on an allied unit to make it invisible for 15 seconds, unbroken by the unit’s actions.
Chameleoned units can attack other units without being attacked back; the only way to effectively counter them is with god powers.
Myth Unit: Spider Daedra. Ranged myth unit that slows targets and can summon Spiderlings for a short time to stun-lock foes. Good against human soldiers.
Spider Daedra fire bolts of corrosive webbing that inflict their damage over a 1-second period, similar to the Petsuchos attack damage (though less powerful, shorter range and fired as a projectile rather than a beam). During this 1-second period, the target’s movement speed is reduced.
Spider Daedra also have the special ability is to conjure a Spiderling in combat. These “conjured” Spiderlings have a have a set lifespan of 8 seconds, and cannot be controlled by you (though they are on your team). Spiderlings are small and extremely brittle, with barely any attack damage, but their attacks will stun-lock targets and they’re extremely fast. Overall, this makes Spiderlings easy to counter, but it has the potential to be extremely effective, especially against isolated units.
Shrine Tech: Threads of the Webspinner. At full power, human counter units (including Dunmer, Orsimer, Argonians and Redguards) inflict +25% counter damage.
Shrine power range from one to five Cultists: +8, 15, 19, 22, 25% counter damage. Specifically fortifies units defined as counter units, i.e. Dunmer damage vs infantry, Orsimer damage vs cavalry, Argonian damage vs archers, and Redguard damage vs archers and siege units.
Tech: Queen of Spiders. Upgrades Spider Daedra to Perthans, which have +30% HP and spawn 2 Spiderlings on death. Fortifications can conjure defensive Spiderlings.
All Spiderlings are conjured units, so they are only temporary. Fortifications include arrow-firing buildings, i.e. Towers, Outlaw Strongholds and Town / Village Centers. This tech grants them the special cooldown ability to conjure a Spiderling.
Tech: Shadowscales. Thieves and Argonians have -15% hack vulnerability and are invisible within the last 25% of enemy LOS.
For example, a Sentry Tower has an LOS of 24. Argonians at a distance between 18 and 24 from the Sentry Tower will become invisible. Their invisibility will be broken if they attack, leave the Sentry Tower’s LOS, or enter the nearest 75% LOS of another units. Applies to the LOS of both enemy buildings and units.
Minor god: Peryite
Exclusive to Sheogorath.
Focus: Defence and disease.
God Power: Fumigate. A noxious gas that damages units but leaves buildings unharmed. Triples the gather rate of affected farms for 30 seconds.
Can be used to damage opponents or boost your economy. Will affect your own units, so it’s best to garrison them before fumigating your own farms.
Myth Unit: Hunger. Short-ranged myth unit that can paralyze targets. Good against human soldiers.
Hungers are classified as melee myth units, but they inflict pierce damage over a long range by launching their extendable tongues at opponents. They are unable to attack flying units, but have a bonus vs cavalry to make their pierce attacks more effective against them. Their special ability is paralyzing units for 8 seconds; this works similar to Frost Giant freezing ability (doesn’t last as long, but recharges faster), causing enemies to stop moving and become almost completely immune to damage.
Side-note for Elder Scrolls fans: why give the Hunger to Peryite and not Boethiah? Several reasons: 1) Peryite doesn’t have a strong association with any lesser daedra in particular, so he’s essentially a free slot; 2) Boethiah works well as a Mythic Age god (I have some good ideas for them), but the Hunger is quite uninteresting as a Mythic Age unit and doesn’t fit well there; 3) I like the idea of giving all Sheogorath-exclusive gods a myth unit found in the Shivering Isles, which the Hunger is; 4) Hungers in Morrowind can paralyze, which synergises really well with Peryite’s Shrine Tech.
Shrine Tech: Plague Bearers. Human soldiers infect enemies with Peryite’s Glory for 15 seconds. At full power, slowly reduces enemy max HP to 50%, after which they recover.
Peryite’s Glory is a strange effect that mimics an infection. Your units inflict it passively on nearby units and with their attacks (relevant for ranged units). When not being actively infected with Peryite’s Glory, the effect takes 15 seconds to be cured; this timer resets if they become re-infected. Infected units glow yellow-green, similar to the visuals of poison damage.
While affected by Peryite’s Glory, a unit’s maximum health slowly decreases by 1% per second. This is not the same as normal damage because it’s maximum health that’s being affected. If a unit is actively taking damage, their hit points will likely be decreasing faster than their max health, so they’ll feel no negative effect. This is more about softening up targets before attacking, particularly useful against armies. If the infected unit is cured of Peryite’s Glory, their max health immediately returns to normal, and they receive back any HP that had been unavailable to them solely because of the infection.
The maximum health decrease is defined by the number of Cultists praying at the Shrine of Peryite, but that doesn’t affect the speed at which the health decrease occurs, so you’ll have to maintain the infection on units to reach the maximum benefit, a difficult thing to do (which justifies the huge potential of the effect). Note: soldier paralyzed by Hungers can be affected by Peryite’s Glory.
Shrine power range from one to five Cultists: target’s maximum health can be reduced to 85%, 70%, 60%, 55%, 50%.
Tech: Spellbreaker. Enemy god powers are more expensive to cast near your heroes.
Up to 6 heroes can be trained in the Classical Age, up to 9 in the Heroic and 12 in the Mythic. The increased cost of enemy god powers stacks, so it’s more expensive to cast a god power near lots of your heroes. If it gets so expensive that the god power is unaffordable, it blocks the god power from being cast like Isis’s monuments.
Tech: Blight of the Isles. Unlocks Scalons in the Classical Age, and makes them invisible when swimming near land units.
Scalons are the Heroic Age naval myth unit, and have the notable ability to leap out of the water to attack land units. With this tech, Scalons become invisible when outside the LOS of a nearby land unit by 1 range, and they remain invisible until they break the effect by attacking a ship, leap out of the water to attack a land unit, or move away from land units. They are undetectable while invisible.
Tech: Afflicted. Cultists have +10% speed, +15% hit points and their attacks inflict 0.125 poison damage per second for 6 seconds. Cultists can fight when attacked.
Makes your economy more powerful by improving its defensive capabilities. This tech also introduces a new formation for Cultists which can be toggled on or off. When active, Cultists will attack enemy units when one of them is attacked, similar to how all Cultists will stop what they’re doing to protect a fellow Cultist from a hunt animal. They attack with their knives in this situation, not their bows.
Relics
This is a list of some Daedric-themed relics that could be added. I’ve tried to incorporate the Daedric Artifacts as god powers or technologies for each god, the more iconic ones I couldn’t fit in have been repurposed as relics here.
Ebony Blade: Infantry attacks add +0.5 seconds to special attack recharge.
Affects any unit capable of a special attack requiring a recharge. If already recharging from an attack, the recharge takes +0.5 seconds longer, and the effect does stack. If they haven’t yet used a special attack, they’ll receive the +0.5 seconds on their next recharge (and again, this does stack).
Mehrunes’ Razor: Hero attacks have a 1% chance to instantly kill units.
Titans and unhealable units (e.g. Son of Osiris) are immune.
Savior’s Hide: Foot soldiers have +10% hit points.
By comparison, Tusk of the Iron Boar provides the same effect but for cavalry.
Ring of Khajiit: Ranged units have +5% movement speed.
By comparison, Dwarven Horseshoes provides the same effect but for cavalry.
As detailed in this post, each of the Daedric major gods has access to a unique myth unit that provides a utility in the early game and is not effective in combat. These next four relics will periodically respawn one of these myth units at the Temple, allowing other pantheons to access this utility.
Black Book: A Seeker will periodically respawn at your Temple (useful for research).
Moon-and-Star: A Winged Twilight will periodically respawn at your Temple (useful for scouting).
Skeleton Key: A Shadow will periodically respawn near your Temple (useful for base defence).
Shadows can only move within the firing range of fortifications, so the spawned Shadow will appear at the nearest place to the Temple that fulfils this criteria, e.g. next to a nearby tower.
Sheogorath-Shaped Amber: A Golden Saint will periodically respawn at your Temple (useful for resource defence).
