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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 8584344" data-attributes="member: 1165">Are Priests Divine?IMO yes, they have to be. You live in a world with literal magic. Compare to the real world, where cultists can claim they're "divine" and can give you blessings. Sure, that's fake, but how can you distinguish between the cultist and a "real" priest?They don't need to be particularly powerful, but they need to be able to demonstrate their bona fides. It could be as simple as dressing the right way, knowing the basics of the faith, speak the holy language if there is one, and being able to cast the "I'm a priest of X" orison. (And yes, a wizard might be able to defraud people with knowledge and magic, but it would be harder and require more effort than in the real world.)What are Priests for?I took a peek at some polytheistic religions for my own setting. In many such religions, there are no regular services. You go to the temple on holidays, weddings, and funerals, but not weekly. Still, the priests are there for helping people with marital problems, grieving widows and widowers, showing up when someone is giving birth, and so forth. Those things aren't important for most PCs but are very important for many NPCs. Stay on the church's good side or you won't receive the sacraments or equivalents.In a magical setting, I figure priests would spend a lot of time performing long-term rituals or very minor rituals. Perhaps the graveyard is enchanted (or hallowed) so that no undead can be raised in it's area. This is very handy when the next great necromancer comes to town, like the Grey Lord who wreaked havoc here last century. Perhaps the necromancer can dissipate the holy effect, but that takes time and effort (like picking a lock) and they have to do so at every graveyard. So to me a god of repose makes sense and has a purpose in the setting; it's their clerics who are doing this, and they supervise the lay employees who do the actual physical labor. If people started losing their faith and so stopped the upkeep at the graveyards, things could get grim pretty quickly.The minor rituals would be something like the ceremony spell from Pathfinder. These are blessings that have an actual impact on NPCs. Perhaps the marital blessing makes having healthy children more likely, but requires an annual donation (so only the nobles can really afford this service), and is broken if a spouse cheats, so it has a direct impact on NPC behavior. This creates an opportunity for politics and so forth: perhaps the clerics are refusing to let the King of X marry the Queen of Y (for whatever reason), so any such "marriage" would be unsanctioned (the heirs aren't "legitimate") and run the potential risk of heirs dying of illness. Getting married would involve negotiating with parents, other nobles, ambassadors, priests, and so forth, each of whom has some sort of veto. Even getting crowned is probably a ceremony that requires permission from the priests of the national religion, which involves putting on a powerful magic crown (even if you're a very low-level incompetent NPC) and maybe turns you into a Fisher King.Ceremonial priestly duties creates space for "evil" religions, or at least religions where evil acts are tolerated. Bigger ceremonies could include things like human sacrifice. Horrifying, but what if the priest conducting the ceremony can prove there's an actual benefit from it? Sacrifice one person per year and the fishing will be good for a year. And if for some reason the fishing is bad, um, you might want to do it again. If the lord of the area belongs to a religion that is opposed to sacrifice, but they require a certain amount of taxes from the fishers, you now have a conflict baked into the setting.Can the Priests Command?This is too dependent on the religion in question. Can a cleric of the god of repose give you orders? Probably not. But if you don't listen to them, they will not bury you in their graveyard, you won't have a tomb or pyramid for people to remember you by, your corpse may become some sort of undead and your place in the afterlife may be threatened. There are consequences, but of course some NPCs and some PCs won't care. That's fine. Just as long as you can modify the behavior of some NPCs then it works.</blockquote>

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