I popped onto test to try out the cleric communes and to see how well they teach theurgy.

Most communes taught a small amount of theurgy, except for Meraud's Commune which shot me up from 0/34 to 25/34 with one commune.

I'm unfamiliar with how long this commune lasts now or the timer for learning from it, but I noticed that for my 100th circle cleric, that the devotion drop for the commune was ~ 1.5 levels (two of these communes dropped me 3 devotion levels - Crystal-clear vision to radiating forth with a divine brilliance). While that is a high cost, I am concerned that such a good teaching ritual will be too attractive for someone to want to make it apart (if not the only tool) in their daily theurgy training.

Given the cost I think this is supposed to be a rare ritual for the cleric to cast, and the reward for casting this was made high to mitigate that. I'm just worried that some subset of clerics (power-gamers or others who are far less knowledgeable) will end up abusing it and leaving a trail of no-steal rooms through out crossing or various hunting areas.

E.G. I forsee some mid-level cleric starting in a room in gryphons, using the spell in his current room to get the high theurgy boost, move on to the next room, and rinse. This not only reduces the number of hunting rooms available for people to hunt, but also potentially reduces spawn with no method another player know that this commune is active in that room.

Worse, the commune cannot be refreshed in a room already under it's effects. So someone who wants to use it to train, has a higher probability for making many rooms nonviolence and no-steal because he needs to do so to train. Too many merauded hunting grounds would disrupt training and too many merauded city rooms could create problems with people interacting.

I don't want to nerf the exp award though, I love that for those people use it as intended. That's a huge devotional cost. I worry that people are going to use it as a training vehicle. What I'd like to suggest is that a cleric need a high level of devotion to cast this commune. In my tests, I was unable to cast the commune when I hit the "a distinct link between you and your god" level (which is 11 of 16). Maybe that could be bumped up a couple of spots to say the 8th or 9th level?

It would also be nice if all other characters could easily tell if a room was under Meraud's Commune. If I understand it correctly, COMMUNE SENSE is a cleric only verb. Could this be opened up to other guilds? Maybe make it less specific than what clerics see, but non-clerics could maybe see something like "This room in a holy room and violence is not allowed here."

I just worry.
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On a separate but related note, it also feels punitive to have to pay for a commune (to learn theurgy) in both devotion and materials, both of which require some moderate amount of travel by a cleric. At some point a cleric will run out of water or oil or incense and have to go buy more. But then they must also stock up on devotion. I see a hard time using some of the other communes to build up a strong training regiment. I couldn't figure it out with my tests (which I admit were brief)

Nikpack