Mechanic: Prayer

I haven't sat down and designed a full mechanic in a while. Let's see if I still have the touch.

Variations:
Blessing
Curse
Sealing
Summoning

Sub-Mechanics:
Alignment
Sacrifice
Lore

Alignment is your relative standing with a particular Spirits. A spirit you have a good alignment with will grant you more power than one with neutral or enemy status. Alignment is a floating scale between 0 and 100.

Sacrifice is the ability to power the prayer yourself by sacrificing something of high enough power/worth to activate the prayer. Levels of sacrifice are item, power item, drop of blood, ounce of blood, digit, appendage, incarnation (you will respawn), soul digit (permanent), soul appendage (permanent), soul (permadeath).

Lore is your ability to decipher the make-up a prayer from it's effects. The exact source prayer is needed in order to counter it's effect.

Lash Back happens when the prayer is invalid or the power source does not cover the whole cost of the prayer. Lash Back will begin a countdown, at which point the character must either sacrifice items enough to make up the power, or it will be sacrificed from their body automatically to cast the prayer. A powerful enough Lash Back can consume the supplicant's soul. If even the soul of the supplicant is not enough to pay for the prayer, the prayer will simply fizzle at end of countdown, and the player will take a 60 second silence effect.

Basic Prayer Mechanic:
A prayer is something the player says in chat. It cannot be a macro, it must be typed directly.

/prayer [prayer type] [aoe var] [power level var] [effect] [duration var] [power source] [target]
/dispell [target] [power source] [duration] [effect] [power level] [aoe] [prayer type] [your power source]

Prayer Words (making it up as I go):
Au - Blessing
Ku - Curse
Lu - Sealing
Hu - Summoning

Oon - Self
Ion - 5 meters
Hoon - 10 meters
Hion - 15 meters
Goon - 20 meters
Gion - 25 meters
Foon - 30 meters
Fion - 35 meters
(r - 4, i - 5, y - 6, j - 7, t - 8, e - 9)
Wano - Target

Ooa - Flea
Ioa - Cantrip
Hoa - Lesser
Foa - Minor
Ioa - Standard
Joa - Higher
Eoa - Greater
Hooa - Greatest
HHoa - Legendary

Ori - Instant
Hri - 1/10 second
Hori - 1 second
Iori - 5 seconds
Hoori - 10 seconds
AriHri - 1 hour
AriGri - 2 hours
EriHri - 1 day
EriGri - 2 days
Era - Permanent

Shutho - Strengthen/Weaken
Whutho - Speed Up/Slow Down
Dhatho - Increase Health/Decrease Health
Hitho - Heal/Damage
Kitho - Cure Blind/Blind
Iatho - Luck Up/Luck Down
Motho - Cure Silence/Silence
(more to come, I'm sure)

Blessings:
Blessings are always buffs. A blessing gains additional power if the spirit powering it is a sympathetic aspect to the effect being used. A blessing may target a player, an object or players/objects in a range around the supplicant.

Curses:
Curses are always debuffs. A curse can only be powered by sacrifice. Items that are naturally sympathetic to the effect will give a bonus in power when sacrificed. Items imbued with power from a god with sympathetic attributes give an additional bonus. A curse can target a player, an object, a place, or players/objects in a range around the supplicant.

Seal:
A seal can be either a buff or a debuff. A seal can be powered by anything, but gains no bonuses from sympathetic power sources, instead sympathetic power sources make it a buff, while antipathetic sources make it a debuff. A Neutral power source will trigger Lash Back. Seals effect everything within target range. A seal may target a player or a place. A soul-seal is a seal that has been powered by sacrificing a portion of the soul, the sacrificed soul material is not destroyed until the seal is destroyed. (Sacrificed soul parts also cannot be used as a power source)

Summons:
A summon calls a player or ally from one location to another. Summons may be powered by anything, and are cheaper if target is sympathetically aligned to power source used. The syntax for a common summon is simpler, requiring only "[prayer type] [power source] [target]". A summon with full syntax is considered a summoning soul-seal, it can only be powered by sacrificing a portion of the soul and can only target mobs. Summoning Soul-Seals allow the player to summon the target anywhere any time at minimal cost, the summon is then capable of growing more powerful, and gives it's summoner a natural buff when not summoned. A supplicant must have good alignment with the mob's patron spirit, or it can cause the seal to fail or a lingering debuff. (When a player is summoned, they have the option of not accepting the summon, this will not cause lash-back with the summoner.)

Imbuements:
An Imbuement is technically a seal, though considered separate for our purposes. Imbuements can only target items, and have no outright effect. An Imbuement places power of the type used as a source into an item, allowing it to be sacrificed for that power at a later date. If it is a weapon, then the player will gain damage benefits related to it's type. Those benefits are proportionally limited by the players alignment with the source of the power imbued in the object. A weapon Imbuement that involves the sacrifice of a player's body or soul is instead proportionally limited by time spent holding the weapon and number of times it is used to attack and can only effect damage output. An item can only be imbued once.