After some digging around, it seems that the current bless system is set up in a way that can be modded, albeit not in the usual sense: it is simply a data table sitting around in the executable, which, usefully, is identical in all the builds of dom5 for the different platforms.

As such, it's fairly simple to locate and edit this table in an automated fashion to create a large array of new bless effects, and this can be done relatively easily for all platforms due to the fact the table looks the same in all of them. Additionally, doing this does not require messing with any instructions of executed code, only the data table.

Thus, my question: does Illwinter object to the sharing of programs/source code that produce a modified copy of dom5 executables? Distributing any derived executables in their own right should obviously be a big fat no on IP/copyright grounds, but modding the bless data table can be done in a way that requires each user to have a working dominions 5 executable to modify, rather than shipping out the whole thing every time.

I would also point out the the open source scripts used to scrape the data for the mod inspector already could be used in reverse to learn how to mod the other data structures of the base game in ways that the usual .dm files cannot. For example, applying the same principle to the unit data table should allow the creation of this guy[cdn.discordapp.com]. which traditional modding cannot do due to lack of mod commands for many of the abilities shown there.

I'm well aware that implementing this "properly" in the form of official .dm mod commands takes time and effort, which is why I looked into whether I could use what I know about the game to easily implement some kind of bless modding, which seems to be quite highly desired. While needing to edit data tables in the executable is an unfortunate hoop to jump through, I suspect there are people out there who would greatly enjoy being able to play with this...

This image[cdn.discordapp.com] shows an example of fire blesses from an alternate universe. I didn't put a huge amount of thought into power/pricing here, but did take the time to test to ensure all these effects worked when added in this way.

I wrote a parser for "mod" files of this format[media.discordapp.net]. Here is some of that which I used for the image above.

For the curious, details about what is possible regarding bless modding:

There is room in the current executable for 100 bless effects, of which one is reserved for the morale +1 that all non-independents get when blessing sacreds. I haven't looked into this one specifically but it is very likely that it too can be edited.

By editing this table:

A bless can be given any primary and secondary path mix. The ingame UI orders them correctly as shown above. Incarnate blesses are hardcoded to those with primary path levels of 5+, but this can be worked around by splitting the bless point cost into the secondary path. For example, N7 regeneration can be made non-incarnate by making it have a primary cost of N4 and a secondary cost of N3.

A bless can be given up to four scales requirements. Either I misunderstand how to write the format, or Order cannot be used as a scale requirement for some reason (or the UI refuses to accept that your pretender has the necessary scales). The UI otherwise enforces these correctly, but multiple scale requirement icons are rendered nearly on top of each other[cdn.discordapp.com] which is a little unfortunate.

A bless can be given a "buffs type 1" (or effect 10 for modders who know such things) damage bitmask to apply, which is how the vanilla quickness and fortitude blesses operate amongst other things. The flaming arrows bless above uses this.

A bless can also be given up to 7 effects to apply. These are in internal ID form[docs.google.com], and not all on this list will work when added this way.

A bless can be allowed to be picked multiple times like Undying, but this uses up one of the seven effect slots.

A bless can be flagged as always active (on all sacred units without requiring blessing), but this also uses up one of the seven effect slots.

The shortcomings include: custom blesses are not included in the bless effect lists from clicking the lit candelabra icon or the temple button on the map. Fixing this would require code changes, which is unfortunate, but the effects still work...

I have not tried to understand the tooltip system for blesses, meaning that they all currently have none, hence the need to try to stuff as much detail as possible in the 32 character bless names.

Oh Steam, I wish you had a preview post option, it would save so many headaches posting something then waiting a minute for it to be reviewed, only to need to go and edit it again.