What they are: A "super emblem" of each giant that depends on your finances to keep it running, It also can gift its services without necessary and direct interaction.
How to make it: You get 11 emblems of the SAME giant and hit iconize (must all be in your inventory), and boom, an Icon is made and 10 of your slots can breathe.
Looks: Like a frame of each giant. To some, mostly mui feo. I like Pot since he's shiny.
Strategy: You can make icons right after you get your first emblems (needed to get those certain skills). And try making the icons of giants that are tiered to skills that you want to invest in. (More input upon your guy's comments)
Actions:
Place & Pick up: Icons are just as secure as distillers when it comes to placement. If you place it outside your house, it can't be stolen unless you depart from it (moving and going to hell when AFK). Like a distiller, you can't put it in others houses (oh hey bob, I think I dropped one of my icons here, and someone took the same one of yours earlier). People cannot take icons that are in others houses, which was a good idea.
Emblem Similarities:
Reflect: Gives some random amount of XP
Revere: Gives some random amount of Mood
Ruminate: Gives some random amount of Energy
~Like having two emblems of the same kind, having to icons of the same giant is useless unless you want to sell the other icon(s).
Differences:
-Benefits are bigger
-You have to tithe it (preferably when it asks you or hinders your from other benefits), to keep it functional, whether or not a new day passes.
You get Giant Love:
Now, I’m not sure if the frequency of love depends on how much you tithe it (although you don't have to tithe to get giant love when the icon is "dry". Thank you Scarlett Bearsdale), but I do know that purposely walking around back and forth isn’t a good idea to get your love. It’s mostly random (as if they have a radar gun that measures with planks/second). Best would be to put them by places of your house that you pass by at some time of the day or a lot. For me, I had a 7.5k bog house that had 3 floors. I use the 3rd floor to enter the house, and 1st floor to collect meat, milk and such. In the 2nd (middle floor) I lined up all of my icons of the time and received a lot of love without having to walk back and forth expecting something that wasn’t going to come.
About tithing and how to counteract them (if you can):
-The fee increases as you level up. (Pay some low level kid the money to pay for your tithes, you can’t use alts since that would be considered “mulling”)
-Tithe only when it asks you to do so, never before you are able to use the icon's action as I've mentioned somewhere(?) for it will not count towards the icon's upkeep. (Thanks Scarlett)
-Keys and Icons: This is probably one of the worst things about icons. They cannot que tithes... I’ll explain: So you and your theoretically good friends always tithe after use, which is nice, and is a good habit. But what if the icon is already happy?! They just get favor, waste their money, and then when you’re up to use the icon, you lament that some jerk did not tithe. Alas s/he did, but the icon couldn’t use/save the money for service continuation purposes, and instead gave your friend favor (which isn’t much). I leave my icons all happy, I have a lot, so I don’t individually use them and the Giant love is awesome enough. I use icons when my friend is standing there, so I can use it, then trade and give him/her the money in advance. (Having them tithe multiple times in front of you when the icon is happy won't make a difference.)
-Using tithe to get favor. Simple question: “Do you have 1 million currants?” If not, then it isn’t really worth it, since you only get a small amount of favor (based on a small percentage on the amount of money you have, and it can be different even then.) This does not contribute to the icons upkeep. You might as well buy meat, or some sort of item on the auction house [preferably to the value that it is worth for by a vendor], and go to a shrine to donate it. You do make some other glitchen happy in the process. What I DO NOT know about icons, is whether the ‘voluntary’ tithe affects how well it gives Giant Love, or whatever else it might do.
Things you might need to know:
-They do not rot away if you don’t tithe.
-They are not very intelligent, if you have full mood and energy, Giant Love benefits might try to give you mood and energy, instead of giving you XP or Favor.
-As you level up, it is true the the cost of tithing does too, but the amount of money you make stays constant. E.g. if AK7's benefits increased based on your level, then it would make sense why tithes should go up.
I think I got everything...
Feedback? Ideas? What am I missing? Poor grammar or spelling? Crappy format?!
I’m open ears and will make changes when possible.