Hey all!
Hope your holiday season has been wonderful so far! As a lot of you know, if you've kept up with me on X and seen my teaser posts, I've been working on my next big mod release over the last year or so: Divine Ascension. This mod is essentially a renovation of my Whitelighter Mod, and will replace it when it is eventually released. It's been INSANELY fun to work on, but it's also been very time consuming and it will likely end up being the most content-packed mod I've made so far. Because of that, it's taken me quite a while to complete, partially due to my tendency to get ambitious and go crazy with new features, so I'd like to offer an extensive preview of what I've been working on, what you can expect in the Divine Ascension mod, and what your support has helped me create! I don't currently have an estimated release date, as that is very difficult to predict, but what I can tell you is that most of the mod is complete and all the individual elements are functional, they just need to be fleshed out and polished.
So, below is an exclusive w.i.p. overview for my Early Access patrons, detailing some features, gameplay systems, objects, etc. that will be coming in the mod! Your support has allowed me to do what I love and I want to repay that with the best quality content possible. I'll be explaining in a lot of detail, so if you'd rather wait for the official trailer, the rest of this post is going to be !! Spoiler Territory !!
Here's what to get excited for! ⬇️
What is the Divine Ascension mod?
Put simply, it's a mod about Angels and Demons. But, there's MUCH more to it than that, which is why the mod isn't just called "Angels and Demons". I wanted to create something that felt more fitting for The Sims, with plenty of room to customize. Here are the main occults of the mod:
Celestials
These are the "angels". They're higher beings, similar to demi-gods, and take some inspiration from the celestials of DnD! Their alignment is naturally more good-leaning and they're more inclined to be benevolent. Celestials have their own selection of powers to choose from that range from healing to guardianship or abilities that affect other sims. The Power selection works similarly to the Expanded Plantsim Mod, with sims gaining "Power Points" to spend on powers/abilities. However, the way they gain those points is different.
Infernals
These are the "demons". Once again, they take a lot of inspiration from the "fiends" of the DnD universe. They're beings that come from the fiery layers of the hells and tend to be more mischievous, malevolent, or downright evil. They have their own selection of powers that lean more toward offense and chaos.
Both Celestials and Infernals have a unique energy motive, Divine Energy and Malevolent Power, which fuel their ability to use their powers, until they undertake a special ritual to ascend...
More Than Just an Occult
I wanted to give these sims a sense of heightened power or importance, rather than just creating another set of occults with some powers that you can play with. So, I think I've created a system that offers a lot more weight to having them in your game.
Custom Deities & Their Followers
Not only will you be able to play as a Celestial or Infernal, but you'll also be able to form followings of sims who look at these occults like gods and pray to them for guidance, gifts, or divine intervention. Want to create the entire Greek pantheon? Go for it! Want to make a man with a beard and call him Jesus? Have at it! Want to make a redhead with microbangs and post-hangover makeup named Gladys? You're a freak and I love that for you.
As your sim gains a following, they'll become more powerful. Each follower will have a "Faith" relationship with the deity sim, which increases or decreases based on certain choices you can make throughout playing, and will impact things like how receptive a follower is to influence or how willing a deity is to help the follower.
By committing to a deity at their altar, your sim can unlock special benefits and responsibilities from their Faith.
Sims can have as many followers as you'd like, and your sim can also worship any number of deities. Each deity is able to have one or more dedicated altars, where you can pray, give offerings, and view information about the deity.
Divine Requests
Divine Requests are the best way to build Faith between a follower and a deity. These are special tasks that relate to the deity's alignment, occult type, or Domain, as well as the follower's occult, career, skills, etc.
By default, followers of NPC deities will get random calls to action, asking them to complete one of these tasks in exchange for rewards. You don't have to accept, but this will cause your Faith to decrease. You can also directly volunteer to do these tasks by praying at an altar!
Prayer
On the flip side, followers can ask for favors of their deities in the form of prayers. These include praying for good health, prosperity, promotions, the death of your enemies, and more! Depending on your sim's level of Faith, they could receive one of three outcomes for each prayer.
Domains
As your Celestial/Infernal gains more experience, they will be able to choose Domains, which are the areas of life that they embody. There are 15 different Domains and each sim can choose a maximum of 3. My goal with this was to allow you to create unique god-like sims, or recreate existing characters with different combinations. For example:
Gale Dekarios (BG3) : Ambition, Wisdom, Magic
Athena (Mythology) : War, Wisdom, Creativity
God of Fertility : Life, Love, Prosperity
Eris (Mythology) : Chaos, Misery, War
There's a good mix of benevolent, neutral, and malevolent Domains to choose from, totaling 455 possible combinations! These Domains will give your sim unique powers and interactions beyond their basic power selection. My initial plan was to create "archetypes" that are automatically assigned when certain combinations are selected, but I fear this would become too complex, especially if more domains are added in the future, but I may revisit this later.
Custom Magic Battle Animations
One of my favorite things I've worked on for this mod is a custom magic battle interaction that is similar to the duels from Realm of Magic, but I've converted and altered a ton of spellcasting animations from Baldur's Gate 3! The animations themselves are essentially finished, but I still have to do the meticulous work of incorporating all the vfx and making them unique to Celestials/Infernals, Domains, Powers, etc.
My hope is to make this interaction cross-occult compatible, to allow battles between spellcasters/witches/celestials/infernals/etc.
Other Stuff
And those are all the major gameplay elements! But there's even more that I haven't covered. Small, fun stuff including, but not limited to:
A new "Harp" instrument that will have a skill, performable songs, and custom music made by a friend of mine.
New CAS items, which can be seen in the screenshots above. (Halos, horns, robes, etc.)
A selection of "athames", which are ceremonial blades used by various religions. These can be given "empowerments" that offer different effects and your sim can use them to hunt Infernals/Celestials or other occults.
A perk that allows Celestials to create their own self-contained planets to customize and tend to.
And that's all I have to share with you for now, but I hope this gets you excited for what's coming! There's still a bit of work to do, but I'm happy to say that the most labor-intensive parts of the mod are essentially complete. As you can see, it is overflowing with a lot of content and complex gameplay elements, so I thank you for being patient and supporting me as I create it. I would love to hear what y'all think of it so far and welcome any suggestions for things to change or improve!
Happy Holidays!
💜SP