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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kichwas" data-source="post: 9674914" data-attributes="member: 891">It's not though.A cleric is a warrior of a religion who exists to spread their faith at the end of the threat of violence.Using that term just peels away all attempts at making it sound better, but that is what it is. And it's a concept that isn't common in fantasy literature in the modern era and has 'aged poorly'.On [USER=18]@Ruin Explorer[/USER] 's note that they're not in many modern video games, lets look at a difference between WoW and FFIXV - the 'big names' in MMOs (well, FFXIV is rapidly losing it's luster, but if I'd posted this 1.5 years ago many of us would still believe it might soon by the permanent #1 - but that's a whole other topic).WoW went priest, but over time that class has seemed less and less priest or more 'healing mage' in how they've used it. Like they have often shied away from 'going there' with it's lore. Not always, but often. They genericized the heck out of 'the light'.FFXIV went with assorted healers but the most 'priest list' was always the 'White Mage' and that's never been about a religion. It's been about the power of love, fuzzy bunnies, rainbows, and hugging trees. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />- And that's closer than a lot of stuff gets.When religion comes up in fantasy literature it comes up as a political force or a faith of a character, but rarely as 'smite the non-believers and unholy ones'.Seraph sort of goes there, but shies away from the brink. Which I like, as I can more easily theme it towards the FFXIV 'power of love and fuzzy bunnies' angle and away from 'crusader / jihadist' even though "paladin" is even more problematic than cleric in what it sources from.In 1974 I don't think people had the same 'exposure' to the problems of this concept as we do in 2025 where global media and more makes it hit home more. So I'm personally "done" with the idea of needing a healer role to be tied to 'smite the heretics'.Rather than trying to troll - I wanted it clear why I'm relieved.Yeah that.The way it's worded in DH lets me 'not go there', and opens it up to be a much fuller concept. I can save 'crusader / jihadist' for adversaries that don't get magical smite powers to go along with their fanaticism.</blockquote>

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