The gods do not hoard their power to themselves. As we give to them, they give to us. Thus, we have the priests. It's a good thing too. Those gods are a fickle and inhuman bunch, but the priest will always help the people.
 |
| A Cleric to go with the last post's gods |
Class: Shrine Priest
Starting Equipment: Ceremonial Robe, Ceremonial Mask
Starting Skill: 1) Ritual 2) Law 3) History 4) Farming 5) Nature 6) pick any
A: Offerings, Divine Magic, +1 MD, +2 spells (1-6)
B: Blessing, +1 MD, +2 Spell (1-8)
C: Shrine, +1 MD, +2 Spell (1-10)
D: Pantheon, +1 MD, +2 Spell (1-12)
Offerings
You know the rite by which magical power can be given to a monster to turn it into a god. Generally this requires a food offering and the worship of at least 10 people (excluding you).
Divine Magic
You can cast spells as given to you by the gods. Work with your DM to create a list of 12 spells. These spells are given by your patron gods and should be split up amongst them. For instance, a priest who worships Virs, the Serpent of Usan, and Ulorin, the goddess of wisdom, would have a spell list like the following:
1. Lock (Ulorin)
2. Knock (Ulorin)
3. Package Neatly (Ulorin)
4. Control Rain (Virs)
5. Extract Venom (Virs)
6. Stoneskin (Virs)
7. Compartmentalize Mixture (Ulorin)
8. Cure Wounds (Virs)
9. Saw and Plane Tree (Ulorin)
10. Scorching Ray (Virs)
11. Serpents of the Earth (Virs)
12. Land Gate (Ulorin)
Your patron gods are located in specific places. When you go to those places, you get your Miracle Dice. Keep track of which MD you get from which god. MD can only be spent to cast spells from the god who gave it. Each level, you get +1 Maximum MD and +2 spells. To level up, in addition to other requirements, you must go before one or multiple of your gods. You may only receive spells from gods present when you level up, but you can negotiate for which spells you get.
(At the DM's choice, you might get Sacraments (cantrips) from your gods, or have specific blessings and bans imposed by your gods. The DM may also change these features and your spells at will, as the gods change their fickle whims)
Blessing
By sharing a meal with someone, you can bless them, giving them 1 MD and the ability to cast one of your spells.
Shrine
You can construct a shrine to one of your gods which can store MD. It takes about a day to construct a 1 MD Shrine, which is little more than an idol under a roof. It does not fill automatically: you or another priest must confer the power of your god from his presence to this shrine. Excessive requests for power will probably draw ire.
(This allows you to build a shrine. You can always draw power from a shrine, even before you get this template, as can anyone who worships and presents offerings to its god. Most people don't call on divine power without reason, but you can't always count on your Shrine "keeping its charge")
Pantheon
You can use the MD of one god to power another's spell. MD used in this way have their depletion range increased by 1.
Stigmata
A Priest's spells are less dangerous than a Wizard's spells. After all, they were made by creatures who actually are magic, rather than some insane mortal grasping at power. However, they are designed for creatures of power, rather than for humans, and the spells are imbued with their nature. When MD roll doubles, the priest receives an inhuman mark of that nature (for instance, slit eyes or scaly skin for Virs). When triples are rolled, a more drastic mutation takes place. The priest takes [sum] damage (save for half) and receives a notable change with significant drawbacks and benefits (e.g., a snake tail instead of legs, loss of all teeth with the ability to swallow things whole, eyes that no longer see light but instead see laws). When the priest acquires too many stigmata, they stop being playable and instead become an avatar or aspect of the god or gods they worship.
Mechanical Notes on the Shrine Priest
Build your own wizard school! With the downside that you'll have to head back to home-base pretty often, or else travel around to several different home-bases to get the MD for the spells you actually want. Will probably make for a more domain based game. You could probably allow some "supplicate the local god and they give you temporary spells" for a more hexcrawl based one. I think that allowing divine cantrips would be good for either someone with a lot of different gods (so that they aren't crushed by being unable to use 80% of their spells) or someone with only one god (so that they aren't crushed by having to use their MD quickly and heading back to town).
The Priest's MD are probably interchangeable with Orison Dice, if you have those. So a commoner praying at a shrine could probably use it like that. While gods might get mad at the overuse of their power on shrines, if you do it right you could get more worshipers for your gods, which means more power for the gods, which means more power for YOU. So don't get mad when people take your MD. It's an Investment.
I wrote this mostly thinking of independent gods. If you have a shrine priest that wants a god and that god's minor gods, you're gonna have to figure that out.
No comments:
Post a Comment