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Changing religions
http://forums.paradigmconcepts.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=650
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Author:  toodeep [ Sat Feb 01, 2014 2:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Changing religions

What happens to a priest or Templar when they have a falling out with their god? Or come to realize they should truly be worshiping someone else? Classically, in most games, other gods are only too happy to poach trained priests from other religions (or usually, accept a fallen good priest into their dark ranks) and priest transfer with spellcasting intact. I'm not sure that is really in character in Arcanis, though the gods have shown they aren't very choosy considering the number of cults, facets, and aspects they seem to have and support priests with.

This came to mind considering the truth of the fire dragon. IF a fire dragon worshipping spell caster became disillusioned with the fire dragon upon learning the truth, and decided to in truth turn to Nier, what would be the effect on the character's abilities? Lose spellcasting entirely? Change fire dragon spells to Nier spells? Obviously story wise he would become a heretic and probably be hunted/killed, but what abilities would they have as long as they survived?

Author:  Nierite [ Sat Feb 01, 2014 4:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing religions

Henry has talked about this, at least somewhat tangentially, before. I'm not sure how it would affect the game mechanics in the rules, but from a universe perspective he has made it clear:

Divine casting is directly tied to the faith of the individual in their God.

Henry, if memory serves, described Divine casting as being similar to a cannon. Knowledge of the Cant and enough Charisma to. . . I don't know, sell it. . . is essential to spell casting, but it is little more than loading the cannonball and priming it with powder. It is the faith of the person in their God which lights the fuse. With this in mind, if a Hero lost faith in the God, they would lose this spark, and therefore lose their ability to cast Divine Spells. They'd still know all the words to say, and the hand gestures and such, but they wouldn't be able to light that fuse.

If a person was converting to a new patron within a church, this might not be much of an issue. They'd almost certainly lose access to Deity specific spells, but overall their faith in the GODS hasn't changed, just who is their patron. Since they are new to the teachings of this new Deity, they wouldn't have the Faith yet to spark new spells that they don't already know (at least Deity-specific ones) so that could be an issue, but probably not the biggest issue.

The real problem comes when a person loses faith in their Gods, period. A conversion of a Priest to, say, a Mourner would probably completely sap them of all their ability to use any Devout Talents and abilities because they have fundamentally lost all faith in the Gods.

Author:  Eric Hughes [ Sat Feb 01, 2014 4:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing religions

The Mourner's in Silence is always ready to defend the free thinking from the intellectual tyranny that is the church!

Author:  toodeep [ Sat Feb 01, 2014 5:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing religions

Oh, no doubt, a faithless priest would have no powers. But what if one switches faiths? Do the Gods allow that? If so, what are the mechanics? If your priest didn't have any diety specific spells, I would think it would be simple to do (mechanistically) but what about diety specific spells? Since there aren't any options for retraining or switching spells or choices you made earlier in your character growth...

Author:  Nierite [ Sat Feb 01, 2014 6:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing religions

As I stated above, my personal view is that if you switch gods within the same (or directly related) church, the ultimate difference is you no longer could cast Deity-specific spells (ie: Blade of Our Lord for Nier), but so long as you still believe in the Gods (have a patron in the same pantheon), then the rest of your spells should remain intact.

If you completely change Pantheons, however (ie: Fire Dragon to Nier, and the Milandric Orthodoxy hasn't fully incorporated the Dragon in yet so I still don't consider them the same church) then I think you fully lose you spells and any Devout Talents that would hinge on your God (ie: Smite Heretic wouldn't be affected, but Cloak of Cadic would be). You have the training to learn new spells, but you have lost all your previous ones so you'd have to start from scratch. My thought behind this is while the Milandric Orthodox and Mother Church are similar enough that their Cants and the 'same', Ssethric and Elorii churches would almost certainly have different cants (at least different wording) for their spells based on their own culture, so their wouldn't be any cross over, even for the same ultimate effect.

As for official rulings, there are none yet. That will be up to Henry, the rest of Team Paradigm, and the Campaign Staff to iron out, but I think it should take the form of the above.

Author:  PCIHenry [ Sat Feb 01, 2014 7:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing religions

Hello,

I can't speak for mechanics, but from a story element perspective, here's my thoughts on the subject:

For a priest to have a "falling out with their God" would require some sort of catalyst of a profound nature. Entering the priesthood is not the same as having a normal jobt, where you can decide one morning that you're bored with you're current vacation and want to be a mechanic or doctor instead. Being a priest, especially one which can actually cast Cants is a life long calling, not a career.

If such a thing were to occur, it would be more likely that you lost your faith - period - and would end up doing something having nothing to do with religion; a warrior or a scholar, perhaps. Faith is not a pair of pants that one changes in the morning. If you were to lose your faith in your God, you'd pretty much lost your faith in religion, I would say.

But, let's continue with your line of thinking and say you worshiped the Fire Dragon and now want to worship Nier.

well, first you'd have to get to know the dictates of that religion. It's like a Catholic turning to Judaism. You may know how to genuflect and say an "Our Father", but probably not the first thing of what occurs in a Synagogue or if you do, it's cursory at best.

So using my example above and if I understand you correctly, you want the equivalent of being a Catholic priest to being a Rabbi. I really doubt that's going to happen or if it does, its going to take a pretty long time.

First you'd need to be a lay worshiper, then maybe the guy who helps carry the torch, etc.

Then there's the question of your character's ability to stick to something: If you turned your back on your God what makes this time any different?

there is also no poaching of priests - that just doesn't make sense. Worshipers? Adherents? Sure. Priests? Not a chance.

Frankly, I'd say you're better off just remaking your character as a priest of Nier and come up with a back story to explain that, rather than go the route described above.

Sorry if this isn't the answer you were looking for, but that's how I would play it in an Arcanis home game.

Author:  toodeep [ Sat Feb 01, 2014 8:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing religions

Oh, I wasn't looking for a particular answer, just an answer. Your answer was pretty much what I suspected from the flavor of Arcanis, but it pretty different from other games. Your reasoning is totally sound in terms of the nature of churches. I just wasn't sure how differently a corpus cant cast by one faith was from that cast by another. So if you worshipped one god, and switched to another, then you could still cast "Bleed" by just switching the names, or if the entire spell is different between faiths. (Especially since it doesn't really appear that one needs to belong to a specific church to get magic from a god- the gods don't appear that picky - or else there wouldn't be all these cults and schisms that all worship the same god and continue to get power from them - its seems to be all about the faith of the caster, not the acceptance of the god)

I was also considering if an Elorii could worship Nier (I know he would be probably be hunted by other Elorii) as containing "all that remains" of his own fire elemental lord, or as an aspect of him (or containing an aspect of him). But then what would happen if his fire elemental lord returned? Not really a switch of faith, but a change in understanding. IF he had been a priest of nier, would he be unable to switch to the elemental lord of fire?

Sounds like it, which isn't really too much of a surprise.

Thanks for the answer! :)

Author:  james.zwiers [ Sun Feb 02, 2014 4:58 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing religions

Mechanically, and effects-wise, two cants of the same type produced by two clergy members of different religions are identical.

From a story-perspective, barring the clergy being members of the same church, the actual details of the cant are likely to differ between them.

The apt analogy is the rites and rituals that surround Communion in the Christian faith. Virtually all Christian churches have a form of Communion, which fulfills the same spiritual purpose, but the rites and practices that surround the ritual differ widely between the different churches.

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