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The Faith items.
"Dissecting people when they were still alive tended to be a priestly preoccupation; they thought mankind had been created by some sort of divine being and wanted to have a closer look at His handiwork."
-- Men at Arms, Terry Pratchett

The faith rods, maces, and flails are vehicles for allowing a player to request their god to perform a service for them, quickly and without the guild point cost (beyond the 40 guild points to hold the item). The services that each item allows the player to request depends on which powers have been infused into them. Note that this system means that wizards, witches and any others not worshipping a god are unable to access the powers contained within the items.
The ability to hold the items are based on skill in faith.items.rod - the more powers they have, the higher bonus that is needed to hold each item. Since Gods are, of course, fickle beings, having enough skill to hold a faith item one moment does not necessarily mean you have the ability to hold it on each and every attempt. However, it is possible to pass a non-failure threshold for each item, where the God will always be satisfied with your devoutness.


Charges:
Each item contains a reservoir of power that is used to contact the God and request that they perform one of the rituals allowable by the item. The items have differing amounts of total charge that is available to them, some using up the pool of charges and crumbling to dust far quicker than others.
The items give off a glow which indicates how much charge they currently contain. The glow system is one of absolutes, rather than one of relative measures. This means that while some items will start off with a higher charge glow, if two items give off the same glow, then they have roughly the same charge remaining. The glow is indicated in the description of the item;

"A brilliant glow along its length reveals ..."
The progression of the charge glow is roughly shown in the diagram below.




Weapons:
As well as their powers as faith items, the rods, maces and flails also function as blunt weapons. Though they are not particularly impressive weapons - being, on the whole, rather too difficult to use relative to the damage they are able to inflict - they can be handy in a tight situation. However, because they are fairly light (the single handed items are typically 3 pounds) the items are susceptible to being disarmed - and with a cost of 40 guild points per item to re-hold, they can be inefficient to use against NPCs which use disarm.


Items Summary:

            Charges      
Item   Bonus* Detect Alignment Stasis Cure Medium Wounds Bless Dust Devil Minor Shield Fear
                   
Wooden Rod 1H 50 - - - - - - -
Brown Flail 1H 120 14 - - - - - -
Jet Black Rod 1H 140 - 2 - - 8 - -
Dark Blue Mace 1H 150 21 4 18 - - - -
Forest Green Cane 1H 170 21 4 18 8 - - -
Red Mace 1H 200 14 2 12 4 8 - -
Yellow Rod 2H 220 14 2 12 4 8 4 -
Silver Flail 2H 240 42 8 36 16 32 13 14
                   

* Note these are the listed bonuses for the old faith items. The new items are possibly slightly more difficult to hold.
Where bonuses are listed for the single-handed weapons, it is the figure for holding a single item of that type. There is a further, and higher, requirement upon any attempt to hold a second faith item in the other hand. As a guide, the attempt to hold a second red mace will usually require roughly a bonus of 350 in faith.items.rod for a chance of success.


Powers:
The powers available to the items are now all in-line with the existing rituals detect alignment, stasis, cure medium wounds, bless, dust devil, minor shield and fear. The strength and duration (e.g. size of dust devil, duration of bless, etc) of the rituals cast from the items is not the same for all users, it depends on skill in faith.item.rods of the person using the item.
Note that the stasis ritual from the items can be targeted at yourself, and then becomes the holy sanctuary ritual.


Availability:
 The majority of the player shops now provide a fair selection of the faith items - though you will of course have to pay more than they are worth in the typical general stores. They are also available first-hand off priest NPCs, some of which are listed below. Typically, it might be more advisable to obtain some of these items by using fumble, or asking a thief for assistance - killing some of the priests, in particular those who provide a valuable service, is often frowned upon.
Silver flails are available solely from Althea of Pishe, who is typically found in or around the Temple of Small Gods.
Yellow rods are available from Kess of Sek, typically found wandering around in the temple complex on and near the Street of Small Gods.
The red maces, at this stage, can be obtained from Ben, a shopkeeper in the Temple of Small Gods.
Forest green canes are available from Dickens (In the Temple of Small Gods) and Hermal.
Blue maces are the providence of the temple administrator, Harry, who also has a part-time business of returning people from the dead.
The rest, as well as some of the above, are available from priests wandering around Ankh-Morpork, often around the Street of Small Gods, and KLK.


Prayer Beads

Prayer beads are available for $50 in your local temple shop. These beads are uncharged and can safely be consecrated to your god if none are available in your temple. Note that consecrating beads to another god once charged to any extent will remove any charge that has previously been instilled into the item. The beads are charged when they are involved in any invocation or prayer - that is, every faith guild point spent while holding the beads is funnelled through the beads and adds to its total charge. The beads can be used by anyone that worships the God that they have been consecrated to, whether they are charged by themselves or another.

The known effects at this stage include:
The beads give off varying degrees of holy auras (which can only be observed by those of the faith) that give an indication as to the amount of guild points that have been instilled within them. The second part of the description is merely a coarser indicator of the same information, with two of the differing levels of auras to each. The beads do not lose charge when they are unheld or placed in some container.

"It is surrounded by a strong holy aura instilled by the numerous invocations it has been involved in.
Starting from as soon as the first guild points are instilled up to fully charged at 5 million guild points, the progression of auras is as follows;

These holy auras are not evenly spaced in terms of guild points needed to obtain each successive aura, being more exponential in nature. The diagram below gives some idea as to the scale involved (The listed auras being at the start of their respective ranges).


As a rough guide, at 4 guild point per heartbeat regen the process of charging to 'radiant' takes roughly 21 hours, depending on lag, if all guild points are instilled into the beads. At the more normal 3 guild point regen this figure is closer to 28 hours.


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