City Blessing

As a city rises through its 10 Ranks, it increases not only in power and prestige but adds more powers to its City Blessing. When a Hamlet is upgraded to a Village, the owner must choose a first level Blessing, and who it may apply to. Some rulers attempt to use their City Blessing to strengthen their enforcement against outside influence, and apply the bonuses to only their City Guard and Ministers. If done properly, the Guards will be far stronger than the average civilian yet the city's growth will be harder to achieve. By contrast, most player-founded cities grant their blessing buffs to any and all, relying on self-policing and goodwill. However, these seemingly foolish establishments grow in leaps and bound, rising through City Ranks at a meteoric rate, before collapsing usually due to key figures being lost.

As a City grows, each rank requires more than the previous. In terms of population, each rank needs double or more the number of people. As a rank rises, the Blessing grows and changes proportionally. Each aspect chosen with each rank grows stronger each time a city levels with it active. New aspects are offered with each level, including ones not chosen before. Some aspects may grow or change as time and Ranks pass, but the core theme will remain. A ruler has 5 classes of powers generated by the City Blessing, and can only choose aspects once per Rank change. Once chosen the aspects grow stronger with City Rank, but cannot be reversed.

Every Blessing is also a Curse. Every civilian within each City may Invoke the city blessing provided they are innocent of the crime of which they are being accused, and gain protection from all forces which receive the blessing. This part of the blessing is to stop corruption within the laws and law enforcement, but specific and clever wording of laws has allowed various Cities to abuse their Blessing invocation. If a civilian or citizen invokes the City Blessing for protection against City officials, light themed to the City surrounds the invoker and can only be dispelled by a Judge or Magistrate, and only if the conditions for sanctuary can be disproved. If a Judge abuses this power, they are typically punished in kind.