Cult Favor is a statistic that is tracked on characters who are members of a cult. Favor is a rough gauge as to how liked or disliked the character is by the Elder Power that the specific cult worships.
Favor is not tracked until a character joins a cult. Once a character joins a cult, however, favor is tracked for all cults - not just the one to which the character belongs.
Favor may be gained in several ways, though the most common mechanisms involve combat. A character may gain favor in a cult by slaying other characters that are in disfavor of that cult, by healing characters who are looked upon favorably by that cult, or by sacrificing items to their cult.
The actual mathematics involved in cult favor changes are complex. However, they operate on relatively few axis:
- The actor's favor with his own cult
- The actor's favor with the target's cult
- The target's favor with his own cult
- The target's favor with the actor's cult
- The overall political stance between each cult
Additionally, the values of each favor come into play as well (e.g., the more favored by his patron cult that the target is, the more favor awarded).
For example, a cultist of Namm named Archon, slays a character who is a member of the cult of Tlacolotl, named Samael. Samael has a high favor in the cult of Tlacolotl (who is an enemy of Namm), as well as a low favor for the cult of Namm (indicating that Samael has slain many members of Namm's cult).
Accordingly, Archon's favor with Namm will rise (because he has slain an enemy of Namm) and his favor with Tlacolotl will fall (because he has slain a favored cultist of Tlacolotl). Further, Samael's favor with Tlacolotl will fall (because he allowed himself to be slain) and it will rise (or approach 0) with Namm (because vengeance has been served).
Sacrificing items will only ever increase a character's favor in their own cult. This must be done at the cult's shrine. There is only one shrine per cult, and its location may be found on the specific cult's profile page.
Every day, a cultist's favor score will decay by 2%. Thus, if a character has a favor score of 800, at the end of the day he will lose 2% of that (or 16 points). Thus, favor must be maintained.
As a character's favor with his patron rises, he will be granted gifts from his patron. These gifts can take the form of increased ability scores, Character Points, badges, and special, skill-like powers.
Different cults award different gifts, though there are some similarities in the progression pattern.
A character will retain use of a gift only as long as his favor is equal to or higher than the favor "threshold" for that gift. If a character earns a gift, and then his favor score falls below the threshold, the gift is removed (until such time as the character regains the favor lost).
The lone exception to this rule are Character Point grants, which remain in perpetuity. However, individual Character Point grants cannot be earned more than once.