Piety: a score reflecting how well a character has honored the tenets of his religion. A pious person may receive boons or miracles, an impious person may be cursed.
Once per game session, the character with a positive piety score can ask for a boon from his god. Samples include: increasing hit points or healing damage, smiting evil, improving saving throws, improving skill checks, or receiving the benefit of a divination spell.
Characters with negative piety may become the victims of a
bestow curse, or worse.
All characters begin play with a piety of 0. There is no lower limit to piety, but the maximum upper limit is the character's wisdom score +1.
Characters gain and lose piety based on their actions. As the characters in this party are all Israelites, I'm only going to list actions pertaining to them. These lists are not nearly exhaustive.
Sample Major Sins (-5 piety or greater)
Premeditated Murder
Sacrificing a human
Using arcane magic (actually, this is -1/spell level)
Having positive contact with a devil or foreign god
Raising, Animating, or consorting with the dead
Publicly worshipping a false or foreign god
Sample Sins (-2 to -4)
Rape
Swearing a false oath
Dishonoringand/or striking one's parents
Causing another to sin to stumble
Privately worshipping a foreign god
Teaching children falsely
Theft
Cheating and employee of wages
Breaking the Sabbath
Knowingly drinking blood or eating part of a live animal
Adultery
Kidnapping
carving a graven image to be worshipped
Marrying a Gentile
Sample Minor Sins (-1)
Inhospitality
Failing to instruct your son in the Lord's laws
Failong to teach your how to earn a living
Knowingly eating unclean animals
Tattooing self/being willingly tattooed
Vandalism
Insulting a priest or prophet
Weilding a weapon on consecrated ground
Trimming one's beard at the corners
To give charity to an extent that your family suffers
Transvestism
Sample Blessings (Positive changes to piety)
General Religious Observance
Minimal: Observes major holidays, endeavors to follow commandments in public
Common: Observes most holidays, follows major commandments in public and private, sets aside time each year for religious study
Uncommon: Observes all holidays, follows all major, and most minor commandments, even in private, and sets aside time each month for religious study
Diligent: As uncommon, but with even more effort to follow all commandments, and setting aside time for study eah week.
Marying another Israelite
Having a child
Tsedekah (Giving charity)
Visiting the sick or bereaved
Helping prepare a body for a funeral
Helping bury a body
Sitting with a body overnight
Protecting innocent life at a cost to self
Publicly rebuking a sinner at cost to self
Relieving a neighbor's burden
Destroying idols
Sacrificing to the Lord
Temptations:
By Sacrificing 1 point of piety, a chracter may gain a 1 time +4 to any one in-game roll (not during character genreation or levelling up, for example).
By taking a -2 penalty to Piety, a chracter may attempt to give another the Evil Eye (-2 to all saves for a day or more, or until a remove curse)
By taking a -4 penalty to piety, a character may curse in the manner of the Egyptians by fashioning a wax figure of the victim and burning it. This figure is called an
isefet, and it's victim suffers a -2 on all saves and hit rolls until a remove curse is applied.
Ghostknight - what do you think the obligations of Israelites at this time (pre-Temple, also before much interaction with Canaan) would have been to non Jews, in terms of charity and other commandments, for example? The party may be spending a lot of time away from home.
