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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pathfinderq1" data-source="post: 6922137" data-attributes="member: 48394">Yeah, that was kind of where I was going as well.The Church (Or rather a part of the Church) is 'the bad guy'. And also 'the good guy'. And the 'Neutral peacemaker guy'. And several other guys floating around the sidelines, alternately observing and meddling. All of these things at once- and managing to stay together well enough to keep their position of power in the world at large. Remember that for all the Renaissance gave us, it also gave us the Borgias and Machiavelli.And more to the point, most of the public has no idea that these divisions exist- or at least not how deeply the powers and factions are split- the Church is very careful to maintain a unified appearance (or at least minimize any divisions), to avoid showing any kind of dissent or weakness that other groups might use to threaten the Church's preeminence in the world. Instead of sects (like Catholicism's Dominicans, Jesuits, Franciscans, etc.- and that is as far as i'll go with that to avoid illegal discussion of real world religion), the various groups mostly identify with particular Exemplars. 'Normal people', especially the deeply religious, might know that some branches disagree on various matters, but they don't know how deep those disagreements run, and they probably couldn't really say EXACTLY what the disagreements were- and that is how the Church likes it. Open conflict is very bad for business, and for the faith- but behind-the-scenes conflict is a whole different story, and some people still end up dead.As for tying in the Magdalena, we can go back to the 'critical' vision role- or say that she is effectively the opposite side of the coin from our sorceress, the 'divine ritual creation to "Balance" the 'arcane ritual creation'- and that the two are relentlessly drawn together by Fate, or the Powers, or the Will of the Maker.>On another (related) note: one thing we might want to do is blur the division between Divine and Arcane magic. Even if, in the end, they come from two different sources, it is effectively the same energy, at least as far as mortals can tell. The true difference is in the belief of the caster, and in how they draw upon it. But normal Detect Magic, etc. just says 'Magic'- perhaps some of the higher level divinations could show a difference- but who can cast them? Or perhaps, in fact, they ARE the same after all, and the ONLY difference is in belief- arcane magic is a gift from the Maker to humanity in this case.-The reasoning I'm looking at is that my scholar will be mechanically a Bard, but from a very Church-based viewpoint. I would kind of like to have her (non-warlock) magic be, at least nominally, divine- or at the very least she believes it to be divine.We will get to the corresponding heresies in a bit...</blockquote>

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