Quickleaf
Legend
What would heresy look like in the world of D&D where gods grant followers divine spells, angels and devils visit mortal realms, and powerful adventurers can planewalk through various afterlives? And would there be a difference across editions?
This issue came up recently in my 4e game. There's an anti-clerical populist (the Heresy of St. Ilia) sect which opposes the practice of selling the raise dead ritual (called 'resurgences' in their rhetoric), decrying it as a tool of the elite to stay entrenched in power, a sacred power pawned off to the highest bidder, a denial of judgment for crimes committed in life, carrying even greater weight than beseeching a king to pardon a victim sentenced to die. In part this is a fantasy interpretation of the Protestant Reformation, but I haven't quite hammered out the other aspects of the movement that make it a full-fledged heresy.
This issue came up recently in my 4e game. There's an anti-clerical populist (the Heresy of St. Ilia) sect which opposes the practice of selling the raise dead ritual (called 'resurgences' in their rhetoric), decrying it as a tool of the elite to stay entrenched in power, a sacred power pawned off to the highest bidder, a denial of judgment for crimes committed in life, carrying even greater weight than beseeching a king to pardon a victim sentenced to die. In part this is a fantasy interpretation of the Protestant Reformation, but I haven't quite hammered out the other aspects of the movement that make it a full-fledged heresy.