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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9406629" data-attributes="member: 4937">That's more or less how it worked historically leaving aside that practices vary so widely that it's impossible to make a single claim. Priests didn't generally claim only their god was worth worshiping and would have attended public rites of other deities, it's just they were initiated into the secrets and mysteries of a particular cult and set aside to perform the particular duties of keep that deity propitiated.  In my game, most priesthoods are modeled loosely after the Vestal Virgins, albeit with standards that vary widely depending one what that god cares about.  The reason for this is that it's only those sort of sacred orders in polytheistic society where you can see a match between D&D's assumption that being a priest also gives you access to sacred and divine power.  Normally, the idea of priest was confined to rites of propitiation and not necessarily to that the priest himself acquired power from his office.  That said, Gygax I think was heavily influenced by Egyptian polytheism which very much was about spells cast by the priests to accomplish basic tasks.</blockquote>