Clergy as Constabulary

[Darraketh]

Ooo... Now I'm thinking of creating a theocratic police state. Traditional military units would provide the muscle with clerics in the role of the secret police.

Perhaps I'll work in the musketeer angle where a weak king is pitted against a strong religious leader. The kings' guards are always duking it out with the theocrat's guards while trying to stay one step ahead of the probing secret clerical police.

PC's will be forced to take sides not knowing which is the just choice.

 

[Wolfen Priest]

I think the Vatican example is excellent in illustrating the point that most guards would not be clerics, but warriors. At what point in history did Catholic priests serve as guards and/or law enforcement officers?

I would think Priests, Clerics, and even Adepts would be somewhat rare in most worlds. The duty of city watchman or guard would be filled by Warriors, perhaps with a resident barrakcs chaplain (as mentioned) who would provide useful spellcasting assistance in solving crimes.

Is magic so pedestrian?

 

[Psion]

Is magic so pedestrian?

That's really up to the DM.

As has been pointed out, most guards wouldn't be fighters, but warriors, and clerics are rarer than either.

But even if clerics are too much for you, you can make it so that only a small subset of the clergy actually have access to magic abilities. Most clergy might be experts.

Auran's Dark Awakenings: Guardian module and the Lady Despina's Virtue / Heretic of Wyre story hour campaign both have priests commonly as experts, and only a small subset actually have the cleric class.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Glad I could provoke some discussion.

As I mentioned before, I think it works best in a small town.

Picture the head of the church in a big city calling in a mid-level priest. He assigns him a dozen acolytes and sends him off to... oh, say, Hommlett-- to keep the peace. This is just the sort missionary assignment that would be handed out all the time.

Same sort of setup as the old west-- one sherriff, many deputies.

What's the standard daily spell selection for the constabulary? Assume a 12 wisdom, with Good, Law, and Protection domains. You get 2+1 first-level spells.

Command is a no-brainer. "STOP! Thief!"

What else do you consider indispensible for the cleric-watchman?


Wulf

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Author Barbara Hambly had something like this. The deal was that the wizards lost to the church so the church was the only ones allowed to practice magic as they presumably had to answer to the divine. It's the Silicon Mage series.

Off topic to the thread, but it also had a particularly nasty "magic" item that prevented spell-casting and caused damage to all spellcasters near it. Neat read.