Good inspiration for Intrigue within the Church

[Mort]

My current group are operatives for the Church of the Silver Flame in Ebberron. While the first several adventures have been relatively straighforward - my plan is to embroil them more and more with the intrigue and plotting of various factions within the church (The Silver Flame is a force for good, but some of it's individual members particularly some of the higher ups are anything but).

I'm just looking for some inspiration on this front - any sort of Church intrigue stuff will do - I'm pretty sure I can adapt it/steal from it. I'm leaving this a bit open ended vague for now since I want to see a broad stream of ideas and go from there.

thoughts?

 

[knightemplar]

I enjoyed the old 2E module Bastion of Faith.

One of the Church of Heironius' greatest saints was exposed to a horrifying monster and came back as evil paladin or a death knight. His friends buried him under the temple and scattered the journals of his fall through out the kingdom. Only the High Bishop has access to the room and knows the true secret, but some of my characters snuck in there and released the beast.

Depending on the amount of people in the party, the Clerics could call on Paladins to defend them, so who ever night it was to be on call would wear a special necklace and if a cleric needed them, they were teleported to where the cleric was in trouble.

There was one mission with this where a retired priest was turned into vampires, so he cast the call paladin spell and asked the characters to kill him. Didn't help he had trained a couple of the characters personally before he retired.

There was also a secret group within the bastion that had a secret doctrine to find holy relics of the gods and hide them, if I remember right from the clergy of the other gods. It has been a while since I read this module though.

 

[Quickleaf]

Not sure what the raise dead spell/ritual is like in your campaign but I had fun playing with what this means theologically. I even translated the idea of indulgences into "resistances", whereby a hefty tithe to the temple got you resurrected...with the caveat that your life was in the temple's hands, so if you acted against th temple or committed an egregious violation of the faith they could and you back to the afterlife. Naturally there were populist clerics who opposed this practice.

Another interesting theme I've explored in separation between chuch and state, particularly in regards to courts of law and land ownership. There's a lot of grey area in between a theocracy and a monarchy. For example, what happens if you get a Henry the VIII situation where a sovereign declares himself head of the church?

There's also the possibility of an inquisition having popular support from superstitious peasants beleaguerd by monsters and demons. They might be seen as a necessary sacrifice, sure your neighbors might die at the stake but at least the whole village isn't destroyed by witches. Differing religious factions would have very different views about the inquisition and try to use it toward their ends.

Just a couple of ideas.

 

[Mark CMG]

Kidnapping and ransom plots that need to be foiled are good fun for intrigue.

 

[Bluenose]

John Julius Norwich: The Popes is an interesting introduction to a position not dissimilar to Keeper. Christopher Hibbert: The Borgias and their Enemies has one of the more notorious church families and their plotting. Maybe some of the plotting around the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or the internal intrigues of the Byzantine Orthodox Church. Antipopes, heresies, poisonings, bribery, hiring of mercenaries and assassins, taxation schemes, it's all there in history.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Three Musketeers -- lot went on there.

Another is to look to history; look to the Templars! Also, why priest stopped marring during the 4th century.

Also, list out the mover and shakers with in the Church and what their goals are, just list out their "seven sins" and place a ranking on them.

1 Lust
2 Gluttony
3 Greed
4 Sloth
5 Wrath
6 Envy
7 Pride

 

[wolff96]

Not to mention that the Church of the Silver Flame has a wonderful dichotomy built right into it (in 3e, anyway, haven't read 4e Eberron books). The Flame is all those wonderful Couatl souls who selflessly sacrificed themselves to destroy/bind the Rakshasa Rajahs.

Of course, one of those Rajahs is imprisoned beneath Flamekeep and can still send it's mind out through the column of fire to speak to the faithful... So there are other "voices" in the flame than just the one that's SUPPOSED to drive the church.

All you need is a more Lawful than good faction of the church that follows the true directives of the flame... that come from the Rajah. Something that would eventually result in bringing about his release or increasing his power and influence, naturally...

 

[Mark CMG]

John Julius Norwich: The Popes is an interesting introduction to a position not dissimilar to Keeper. Christopher Hibbert: The Borgias and their Enemies has one of the more notorious church families and their plotting. Maybe some of the plotting around the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or the internal intrigues of the Byzantine Orthodox Church. Antipopes, heresies, poisonings, bribery, hiring of mercenaries and assassins, taxation schemes, it's all there in history.

Papal Deaths

 

[Mort]

Not to mention that the Church of the Silver Flame has a wonderful dichotomy built right into it (in 3e, anyway, haven't read 4e Eberron books). The Flame is all those wonderful Couatl souls who selflessly sacrificed themselves to destroy/bind the Rakshasa Rajahs.

Of course, one of those Rajahs is imprisoned beneath Flamekeep and can still send it's mind out through the column of fire to speak to the faithful... So there are other "voices" in the flame than just the one that's SUPPOSED to drive the church.

All you need is a more Lawful than good faction of the church that follows the true directives of the flame... that come from the Rajah. Something that would eventually result in bringing about his release or increasing his power and influence, naturally...

That's right - I'm actually going with this angle quite a bit. Even further "The Shadow of the Flame" whispers to some of the Cardinals- there will be at least one faction who's goal will be to release it from the flame -something I will ramp up once they get to around paragon level.

 

[Thunderfoot]

That's right - I'm actually going with this angle quite a bit. Even further "The Shadow of the Flame" whispers to some of the Cardinals- there will be at least one faction who's goal will be to release it from the flame -something I will ramp up once they get to around paragon level.

And don't forget the "Flame" also have their Jihadists (for lack of a better word) that feel that NO other religion other than "The Flame" is correct, so if a local powerful bishop declares a Holy War on another good aligned church for heresy, that can really put the intrigue in the campaign, especially if it is later found out that the bishop wasn't so lawful or good him/herself.