Forever and Ever, Amen - A Guide to Successful Worship

A how-to guide/manual for playing the game. Should be helpful to both first time cultists and experienced high priests alike.

Intro

Disclaimer: To my knowledge this guide is now complete. If you notice anything incorrect or missing, please let me know.

Goal: My goal for this guide is to be a one-stop shop for both achievements (they're actually pretty simple), Endings, as well as a general reference. I also want this to cover the basics of gameplay as there is no tutorial in this game.

The Basics

This is primarily a game of resource management. So lets take a look behind the sickly green exterior and see how things work.

Your ultimate goal is to keep all the houses happy while keeping your God happy by keeping all your people faithful in the 5 tenets of your faith:

• Ignorance (Mind)
  
• Fervor (Flame)
  
• Discipline (Gavel)
  
• Penitence (Whip)
  
• Obedience (Prayer)

If any of these were to drop below the threshold (shown by a vertical line) and not be redeemed by the following season you will get a gameover. If any of these are below the threshold by the end of the 3rd Winter Season, you will recieve one of the "bad" endings related to that tenet.

How To Play

Each Season you must elect a representitive from your house who has vices and virtues that adjust the bars on the screen. Each selected house will boost the stat for their respected house (IE Kegnni boosts Ignorance) as well as boost the stat for their Virtue and lower the stat for their Vice, depending on how positive it is or negative (see Traits section for details.)

After 3 months (rounds) of this you then must choose someone to sacrifice from your pool of representatives. Unfortunately this will upset the houses and lower their loyalty to you. Sacrificing someone will usually boost the stat that is their Vice and lower the stat that is their Virtue, the amount depending on how positive/negative it is (see Traits section for details.)

If any stat happens to go into the red, you will be required to get it above the threshold before the end of the next season. Occassionally your God will also ask you (through dream) to sacrifice specific people and to focus on a particular tenet more than the others. You will also recieve mail at your castle which are mini-events where you make some decisions that boost and lower stats or have other consequences (like revealing people's Traits or even changing them.)

You rinse and repeat this process until your 3rd Winter, which is the "final" round.

Loyalty

Loyalty is a bar that operates on a spectrum of 100 to -100. Loyalty is split amongst participants each season, so if you choose 3 participants the loyalty is split amongst 3 houses. Here's how it breaks down (exact numbers may be a little off).

• 1 = +25
  
• 2 = +10 each
  
• 3 = +5 each

Anyone not chosen will recieve -5. Anyone who ISN'T chosen for the sacrifice will also gain +5.

Sacrifice

Every season you must sacrifice someone. Here's an outline of how sacrifices are handled by the houses in order of worst result to best.

• Same House Twice in a Row = -100 to loyalty
  
• Traits are ???? = -50 to loyalty
  
• Traits are Rumors = -50 to loyalty
  
• Sacrificed w/Minor Vices = -50 to loyalty
  
• Sacrificed w/Mortal Sin = -30 to loyalty

If it's not clear, your goal should be to eliminate anyone with a Major Vice/Mortal Sin to reduce the negative impact from the family. The only exception to this is if you're trying to make that house happy or if you've already sacrificed someone from that house last season.

Traits

Traits come in multiple stages, undefined, rumored, and then the actual trait. You uncover these traits through inquiries with the houses (the number is based on their loyalty) and through them performing actions during the season. The levels of the traits also come in multiple varieties.

Vices

• -10 (Minor)
  
• -20 (Minor)
  
• -30 (Major)

Virtues

• 5 (Minor)
  
• 10 (Minor)
  
• 15 (Major)

Mortal Sins

There are 10 major vices in total, which means there are 2 major vices per tenet.

IGNORANCE
Artist
Scholar

FERVOR
Cowardly
Morbid

DISCIPLINE
Embezzler
Pervert

PENITENCE
Swindler
Liar

OBEDIENCE
Kleptomaniac (Referred to as Thief in the dream)
Rebellious

Note: Please be aware that tenet =/= house. It means that if you're looking for a particular category (like the Thief) then you should be focusing on people who have a Vice in Obedience.

Note #2: It was also suggested that whatever tenet is asked to be focused on means that the person with the Major Vice your God wants found is located inside the house that is in charge of the tenet you're focusing on.

Note #3: If you've somehow wiped out all the above list, you may start getting more specific tasks from your God like killing the "pubescent" (teen), etc. Just use your best judgment on these, feel free to provide additional information in the comments section.

Tip: Pay attention to what your God says during your dreams, as they will identify whether the person you're looking for is a man or a woman based on the pronouns they use.

Thanks to peteczajk for confirming and listing the tenets. Thanks to Sun Dreamer for the advice on location of the sinner.

Achievements/Endings

There are a number of Achievements, most of which are tied into the ending. I'll keep it basic for now but here's the requirements:

- Get each house to 100 (or Zealous, not sure which) and you will get the Befriend House achievement for the respective house.

- Uncover all traits of the LIVING villagers by inquiring and focusing on characters who don't have traits. This may be easier to do in a game where your focus is the achievement and not so much actually winning, although in order to get that far you may end up winning anyways.

Tips: You don't need to uncover all 60/60 (but if you do, you're a baller like me 'cuz I did that) feel free to sacrifice people with too many undiscovered traits to speed the process up.

- Kill everyone in a single household is easy enough, although I suspect it'll be difficult to win the game in that scenario.

Tips: Luckily 2 solo uses of a house is enough to make them not mad at you anymore, so you can keep killing them off one after another if you'd like as long as you keep all your other bars up in the meanwhile. You get 12 kills in total (4 per year) and there's only 6 members per household.

- The endings are all based off the result at the end of the final winter. If any Major Sinners are still alive or any threshold isn't met then whatever your lowest tenet (even if it's not in the red) will be the ending you get. On the other hand, if they're all met and all the houses are happy (be careful about who you sacrifice as not to either change the threshold line or upset a family too much) then your God will rise. (Thanks to Sun Dreamer for researching this.)

Tips/Advice

I don't have too much advice to give, but when you're just getting your feet wet, your goal should be to find a Major Sinner ASAP so you can have someone to sacrifice during your first season end. This is especially important if you're trying to reveal all 60 traits in a single playthrough.

This means running a group with characters who either have ???? for a Virtue and a Rumored Vice OR someone with a Rumored Virtue/Vice. If you run a ????/???? character the chances of you getting everything fully revealed in time are slim.

Additionally, you should focus your inquiries on characters who already have their Vice rumored, to greater increase the chance that the inquiry will reveal what their Vice actually is.

To further increase your chances of finding a Major Vice, anytime you're in the clear on your tenets and can risk dropping into the red you should run 3 characters to minimize negative impact while also revealing as many traits as you can.

[Doom Slayer]

You make them an advisor and sacrifice them after the round.

[Moonlillie]

What do you do when you find the person in question?

[TOMMY TELESHOPPING]

Did some testing, to befriend a house you have to have +100 points at the end of the three seasons

[Capriest Sun]

- As mentioned 2 comments ago, killing off an entire house is very beneficial: you can focus approval maintenance without having to compromise as much. Ideally, you should keep a major virtue villager whose virtue covers the missing (murdered) house. Plus, approval during sacrifices are slightly more efficient (sacrificed house -30/50/100 and other house +7 instead of 5).

- If your cages are empty, always put people in to examine unknown traits. Do prioritize limiting outbreaks in every house because it can ruin the late game (especially when going for the all awoken ending -- The Shoal)


I have yet to understand the full mechanics behind the purification vice/virtue improvement and purification murder. If anyone has insight, I'd like to use it to facilitate an all extinct run!

[Capriest Sun]

Extra strats that I have been using to finish the game pretty steadily:

- Go check out the guide on virtue quotes and events by Phalzor; it's a lifesaver!

- Only play the game for the tenets/virtues stats early game; after 4-5 turns you should be focusing almost entirely on house approval stats (don't forego maintaining the virtues, but plan according to houses).

- Abuse the idea that House approval can only go so high or so low, aka: don't try to appease a house that's -50 dissatisfied if you're about to unjustly sacrifice one of their members. Exploit the -100 cap and that 2 single advisor turns of said-house can recover the worst approval situation.

[Capriest Sun]

@Belcchan: Wokeness (lol) has to do with having a pre-existing major virtue, nothing else. You can give villagers major virtues through random purification -- maybe that's why it worked randomly for you

[Capriest Sun]

@tuxdelux: that is basically the most viable way to execute a safe run and thank you for posting that info, helped me a lot. It allows to eliminate a 3 living member house: any sacrifice (just, unjust -- just not a streak), to then follow it up with a streak sacrifice, and then another one to snuff the entire house out. Since the rebellion only has to be solved by the end of next turn's sacrifice, it's doable.

[lahaika]

Thanks for the guide, really aprreciate this

[Belcchan]

I'm still testing this, but I think it's worth mentioning: the game hints at who will be drowned and who will transform.

I was keeping track of everyone being confined and then judging their reaction upon release. If they reacted in a POSITIVE way like "Phew", "Thank you", I'd have their name and move on. If they reacted in a NEGATIVE way like "Change your mind?", I'd keep them confined and they'd be an Awoken after two purifications.

But it is a flawed theory because:

- One always reacted in a positive way, but they'd be acting strangely in the next season again. The cycle repeated itself for a year until I got fed up and didn't release them anymore. Awoken.
- One refused to go out and I, thinking about my new Awoken, had come back to a pissed family. Drowned.
- One reacted in a negative way. I kept him there. Vice increased. I tried again. Vice increased again. I tried AGAIN. Drowned.


I'll update if I figure this out entirely

[tuxdelux]

It might be worth adding these factoids, regarding Rebellion:
If a house is in rebellion, and you sacrifice the last remaining member, then the house will not rebel.
If a house is in rebellion, and you lock up the last remaining member in the tower, then the house will rebel for game over.