Pretender design: costs, forms and scales

The price list behind the design screen: body types, path, dominion and scale costs, how bless points are earned, and when your god arrives.

verified 6.37updated 2026-10-02 · Jake14 min read

The design screen is explained step by step in Designing your pretender god. This page is the reference behind it: the numbers, the exceptions, and the arithmetic you do in your head while moving points between columns. It does not retell the first-game guide, so read that first if the screen is new to you.

Every figure comes from the game’s manual. We have not re-measured any of it. Where the manual is silent, the last section says so.

The budget

A nation’s god is built from design points. Each nation starts with 450. Four things draw on them: the physical form, magic skill, dominion strength and the scales. A fifth choice, the awakening, works the other way and adds points. The form usually has a price of its own, which comes off first. The manual’s example is the Phoenix at 110 points, which leaves 340 for everything else.

The god you build is a commander. It moves on the map and fights on the battlefield like any other commander, and it can research, cast and forge. The manual calls the pretender the most important single choice in a game, because the god sets how much dominion a province can hold, how fast dominion spreads, which scales rule your land and which blessings your sacred troops carry.

Physical form

You pick a body from the list your nation offers. Nations differ in how many bodies they have, because a form is only offered where it fits that nation’s history. A right-click on the selection screen shows the body’s statistics.

Everything a body has is built in. The manual is explicit that you cannot buy or confer a body’s attributes separately. Two consequences matter at the design stage:

• A body’s cost already covers its starting magic paths and its starting dominion strength. The manual notes that this is part of why starting with the paths you want is a saving.
• Each form has its own “new path” price, the price of the first level in a path where the body has none. The manual’s Carrion Dragon example shows 80 points for a first level of Fire.

A few forms have special rules, listed next.

Immortal forms

Some bodies are immortal: the Vampire Queen, several liches, the Phoenix and others. The manual separates two kinds.

Dominion immortality, as the Phoenix has, only works inside friendly dominion. A god that dies in a province with your dominion appears again in your home province. A god that dies elsewhere is treated like any other dead god and needs Call God.

Full immortality, as the Master Lich has, works anywhere. The god re-forms even if it dies far from your dominion.

Both kinds have limits the manual states. Re-forming takes a while, usually about three months, depending on the creature type. A god that is soul-slain does not re-form and must be called back by priests like any other. An immortal that dies on a remote plane, such as the Void or the Inferno, cannot use its immortality at all. Re-forming usually clears most afflictions, but being immortal does not make a unit heal afflictions any faster than others.

On death, a fully immortal god loses no magic and no dominion, wherever it died. A dominion-immortal god that dies in friendly dominion also loses nothing. If it dies outside friendly dominion, the ordinary death penalties apply. Those penalties are in the first-game guide, under When your god dies.

Immobile forms

A few bodies cannot move: the Monolith and the Fountain of Blood are the manual’s examples. They have no movement of their own, but teleporting rituals can usually still carry them. Two, the Monument and the Geyser, are too large even for that. The manual adds that a few teleport-like spells, Wind Ride among them, are not true teleportation and need a caster that can walk. It says that most immobile forms cost little, and that building a good one is a challenge with its own rewards.

Dragons

Choosing a dragon gives you a wizard on the map. The manual says this is intended. A dragon pretender stays in wizard form until it changes shape by a shape-change order or by being wounded in battle, and the manual’s reasoning is that spellcasting is easier with hands than with claws.

Trinities

A trinity is one god split into three bodies. They share part of their magic, and lose some of it when apart. With only two present they lose some power, and a lone body is much reduced. The size of the loss differs between trinities. Each body has reduced research, though all three research at once. If one is killed, it is called back in half the usual time.

Magic path costs

Starting skill depends on the body: some have a few levels, some none. Whatever the start, you can buy more on the Magic screen.

The price of the levels you add to a single magic path rises by 8 with each one:

• level one added costs 8, two 16, three 24, four 32, five 40;
• level six costs 48, seven 56, eight 64, nine 72, ten 80.

The totals are cumulative. Reading off the running sum, the first four added levels cost 8, 24, 48 and 80 points in all, and five levels cost 120. Ten levels in one path would cost 440, which is nearly the whole budget.

The count is of levels you have added, not of the level the god ends at. The manual’s example is a Great Mother who starts with Nature 2: going to Nature 3 costs 8, because it is her first purchase in that path. A body that already has the paths you want is therefore a real saving, though the body’s own price partly reflects that.

The first level in a path where the body has no skill costs the form’s new path price instead. Later levels in that path follow the table above, starting from 16 for the second. In the manual’s Carrion Dragon example the dragon starts with Death 1 and Nature 1, and Fire is a new path at 80:

• Death to 4: three added levels, 8 + 16 + 24 = 48.
• Nature to 4: the same, another 48 (96 so far).
• Fire to 2: 80 for the first level plus 16 for the second, which makes 96.
• The total is 192 points of magic, on a body that cost 160. Of 450 points, 98 remain.

The manual’s own remark on this example is that magic can be very expensive.

The same paths decide what divine spells your nation’s priests can cast.

Bless points and sacred units

Only sacred units can be blessed. A blessing is a level 1 holy spell, cast only in battle, so any priest can cast it. A blessed unit gets one point of morale, every bless effect you bought for your pretender, and every bless effect of any Throne of Ascension your nation or its disciples have claimed. The morale point is common to all blessings and is not on the list of purchases.

Bless points only exist when the god has skill 2 or more in some path. Each level above 1 in a path is worth a point, so the manual’s god with Air 2, Death 4 and Nature 6 has 1 + 3 + 5, which is 9. Some nations or bodies give extra bless points. Marignon gets 3 more, according to the manual.

An effect costs the sum of its skill requirements. One that asks for Astral 3 and Fire 1 costs 4. Some effects also ask for a scale setting. That requirement must be met, but it adds nothing to the price.

Passive and incarnate effects

A few effects never switch off, for instance larger size or ageless bodies. The manual calls these passive blesses and flags them with an asterisk. Others are printed in bold because they are incarnate only: they work when the pretender is awake and living, and not otherwise. Bold does not survive in the text we work from, so this page cannot say which effects carry that mark. Check the game’s own list.

What the lists offer

The manual lists the effects by path. The number after each is what it costs, counting every skill requirement and ignoring scale requirements. Where a second path is needed, it is named.

• Fire: Superior Morale 1; Wasteland Survival 2 (Death 1); Attack Skill 2; Fire Resistance 2; Inspirational Presence 4; Righteous Wrath 4; Death Explosion 5; Heat Aura 5; Fire Shield 6; Flaming Weapons 7; Unbearable Splendour 12 (Fire 8, Astral 4).
• Air: Precision 1; Shock Resistance 2; Farshot 2; Awareness 3; Swiftness 4; Storm Flight 4; Wind Walker 5; Weightlessness 6 (Air 5, Earth 1); Air Shield 6; Thunder Weapons 7; Charged Bodies 8; Flight 9.
• Water: Winter’s Gift 1 (Cold scale 1); Swamp Survival 2 (Nature 1); Cold Resistance 2; Swimming 2; Defence Skill 2; Chill Aura 5; Slow Weapons 5; Water Breathing 6; Vitriol Weapons 8 (Water 6, Fire 2); Frost Mist Weapons 7 (Cold scale 1); Quickness 9 (Magic scale 1).
• Earth: Mountain Survival 1; Reinvigoration 2; Strength of the Earth 2; Unbreakable 4; Reconstruction 5; Resilience of the Earth 5; Hard Skin 6; Fortitude 7; Larger 7 (Earth 4, Nature 3).
• Astral: Arcane Command 1; Magic Resistance 2; Spirit Sight 4 (Astral 3, Death 1); Solar Weapons 4 (Astral 3, Fire 1); Far Caster 4; Arcane Finesse 4; Magic Weapons 5; Twist Fate 6; Fateweaving 7 (Misfortune scale 1); Etherealness 8 (Magic scale 2).
• Death: Undying 1; Undead Command 1; Half Dead 2 (Death scale 2); Mending Bones 3; Withering Weapons 4; Stygian Flesh 5; Reforming Flesh 6; Reanimators 7; Death Weapons 8; Fear 8.
• Nature: Resilient 1; Low Light Vision 1; Poison Resistance 2; Forest Survival 2; Unaging 3 (Magic scale 1); Poison Weapons 4 (Death scale 1); Recuperation 5; Berserker 5; Barkskin 6; Regeneration 7.
• Glamour: Undreaming 1; Heroism 1; Quiet Stride 2; True Sight 3; Blur 3; Obfuscate 6; Awe 8 (Glamour 6, Fire 2); Displacement 7; Dread 7; Luck 8 (Luck scale 2).
• Blood: Strong Vitae 1; Strength of the Flesh 2; Strong Blood 3; Enchanted Blood 4; Blood Surge 4; Blood Bond 5; Unholy Weapons 6; Blood Vengeance 7; Vampiric Weapons 12 (Blood 8, Death 4).

Two things follow for budgeting. An effect with a second path requirement costs both, so Wasteland Survival is not a one-point item and Unbearable Splendour is the most expensive entry on the list. And a scale requirement costs no bless points but still has to be paid for in design points, because you must tip the scale.

The Magic screen lists every effect your paths entitle you to, at the bottom.

Automatic blessing

Your pretender and your disciples receive the blessing for free whenever they stand in your own dominion, and cannot receive it anywhere else. Sacred troops fighting alongside the pretender are covered too, provided the fight takes place under your dominion.

Dominion strength

You add dominion strength in candles. Every pretender starts with at least one, and the maximum is ten, so at most nine can be bought. The price of each added candle goes up by 7: 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56 and 63.

The price applies to candles above the body’s own base. A pretender that starts at 3 pays 7 to reach 4 and 14 more to reach 5. From a base of 1, the running totals for two through ten candles are 7, 21, 42, 70, 105, 147, 196, 252 and 315, so the top strength alone costs 315 points. The manual’s Carrion Dragon starts at dominion 2, and going to 5 costs 7 + 14 + 21 = 42.

Pretenders and prophets also change with the dominion in the province where they stand. For each level of friendly dominion they gain 1 strength, half a point of magic resistance and 10 per cent hit points. For each level of enemy dominion they lose the same, though hit points never fall below 10 per cent of their full value.

How dominion spreads and recedes is a separate subject. This page covers only what you choose at design time.

Scale costs

Each scale has a favourable and an unfavourable side. Tipping one click towards the favourable side costs 40 points, and one click the other way pays you 40.

Heat and cold is the exception, because it has no good or bad side. A people has a preferred heat setting, and the design screen starts there. Each click away from the preferred setting, in either direction, pays 40 points, but only for the first three clicks. The manual’s example is Machaka, which prefers Heat 2. Heat 1 or Heat 3 pays 40 points and costs the nation some of its tax income and supplies. The manual also notes that some abilities, such as ice protection, depend on the heat and cold scales.

Scales span -5 to +5 in principle, but the design screen lets you tip each two clicks either way. Some gods are attuned to a scale or two and get one extra click there. Their opposite scale becomes harder: it stops at 1. The Master Lich shows both halves, since it reaches Death 3 and Growth 1 at most. Nations may carry an attunement of their own, worth one or two clicks. When the nation’s and the god’s attunements conflict they cancel, and the two together never lift a limit past one extra click.

Effects are per click. Two clicks of Order raise income by 4 per cent in all and cut random events by 4 per cent. The screen shows the running total. Per click, from the manual’s table:

• Order: 3% more income, 2% more resources, 10% more recruitment, 1 more unrest reduction and 2% fewer random events. Turmoil flips every sign.
• Productivity: income +3% and resources +15%. Sloth reverses them.
• Heat and cold: each step from a race’s ideal setting costs 5% of tax income and 10% of supplies.
• Growth: population growth +0.2% a month, supplies +10%, income +1%. Death reverses them.
• Fortune (luck): 5% more random events, with a 10% better chance that an event is good. Misfortune has the same extra events and a 10% worse chance.
• Magic: spells are harder to resist, by half a point of magic resistance per step (rounded down) for every unit in the province; casting costs 10% less fatigue; friendly mages gain 1 research point and 50 points of starting research. Drain reverses all of it.

The manual gives two cautions. A province lags behind: its scales drift toward your setting more slowly than dominion climbs, so strong dominion for several turns is needed, and thin dominion may never complete the drift. Also, settings of 4 or more are discouraged, since they tend to bring unwanted side effects that the dominion chapter describes.

The manual’s worked budget closes the loop. The Carrion Dragon’s body costs 160 and its magic 192, leaving 98. Raising dominion to 5 costs 42, leaving 56. One scale click is 40, so one scale can move by one step, with 16 left over. To afford more, you take points from the awakening, or move some away from magic or dominion.

The awakening

The awakening is the time before your god arrives, traded for points. Arriving at the start gives you the usual 450 minus the form. Arriving about a year in, which the manual puts at 10 to 13 turns and calls Dormant, gives 150 more. Arriving after three years, 28 to 42 turns and called Imprisoned, gives 350 more.

These waits are approximate. Rivals who chose the same awakening may see their gods arrive slightly earlier or later than yours. A disciple wakes after roughly half the delay set for its pretender.

A god’s bless effects are fixed at design time. They stay as they were whatever happens to its magic or dominion later. The rules for what a death costs are in the first-game guide, and the Call God pool of about 50 points is raised by half in a disciple game, according to the manual.

What the manual leaves out

• In the plain text we use, it does not show which bless effects are incarnate only.
• It gives no formula for new path prices by form. They appear only on each body’s screen.
• It gives no figures for a trinity’s loss when its bodies are apart.
• It gives only rough times for re-forming, and says they depend on the monster type.
• The exact rate at which a province’s scales approach your setting is in the dominion chapter, not here.