Hand of Sventyath (Please comment)

[PeregrinFig]

Hand of Sventyath is an original RPG I've begun work on after my old project broke. It takes place in the era of the Knights Templar and crusades, but they follow a fictional god known as Sventyath. The story begins fairly cliche, but has many twists throughout it that I won't spoil. What I will say, however, is that despite the intolerant setting, the game actually has a message of tolerance deeper into it.

One feature of the game is a simple but interesting sacrifice system. When you kill certain monsters (the set-in-stone ones as of yet are rams, goblins, wyverns, mice, and doves), you may find their meat, and can use special altars to sacrifice their meat to Sventyath, and how many you've sacrificed is recorded. When you hit certain amounts, you gain benefits. For example, after sacrificing 10 rams at the first altar, you get 100 Gold, your Intelligence goes up 5 points, and you gain the Pray skill, the lv 1 Holy spell that hits all enemies. These benefits can make collecting and sacrificing meat worth your time, as the skills and stat boosts can really help your chances of winning boss battles. Also, upon massive numbers of sacrifices, you get very rare items. If you sacrifice 500 rams, you obtain special boots that prevent terrain damage, raise evasion, and prevent enemy critical hits. Some of these items are even more useful; if you sacrifice 1,000 dragons, you obtain the all-powerful Ragnarok sword and the elemetless Burning Hand skill.

This is the background story that comes up right at the beginning of the game:

Twenty years ago, the two great kingdoms of the world were at war. The kingdom of Seian, faithful followers of Sventyath, had initiated war with the heathens of Myralka. The holy war went on for seven long years, until Seian sent its greatest band of warriors to fight. They were Damin, the quick; Sorban, the precise; Teloch, the powerful; and Maniryl, the clever. All of Seian led an assault on Myralka, and the four destroyed the fortress of the heathens. By the end of the great war, Damin and Sorban had been lost. Within a year, the intensity of war had died completely, and Teloch and Maniryl returned to Seian Castle as heroes, heralded as the most elite force.

However, the stress of war had harmed the King in his age. In a mere three months after the war, the king had passed. His son, only fifteen years of age, took the throne. He was a foolish leader, squandering the power of the greatest. Many proud heroes had been lost. With the forces thinned greatly, and mysterious powers rising everywhere, a great, unavoidable draft was issued. Both Teloch and Maniryl were brought back into the ranks of the knights. Though war is currently far from anyone's mind, Teloch and Maniryl must find the cause of the monsters appearing throughout the land. With little more than a sword at his side, Teloch must journey far and use Sventyath's power to find the cause of the rising darkness. This is his story...

SCREENSHOTS







Also, I'd like to give credit to drenrin. A lot of his amazing MIDIs fit the themes I was looking for, and nearly all of the music currently used in the game was made by him.