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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 7001341" data-attributes="member: 19857">I'd agree with this.  Why does a god decide to grant powers to a particular cleric?  Maybe...1. The cleric is really super-devoted and the god likes to reward devotion2. The cleric is really good at mouthing the words and the god really likes having his/her ego stroked3. The cleric is mediocre in their devotion and the god is trying to prove a point to the rest of the clergy4. The cleric is really bad in their devotion in a way that strikes the god as funny, so they hand out clerical powers to keep the jokes coming 5. The god isn't paying much attention and hands out clerical powers like candy on Halloween - if you show up in the right clothes and say the right things you'll get clerical powers6. The god sees the cleric as a useful idiot who can be manipulated into doing what the god wants7. The god foresees that at some point the cleric will be at the right place at the right time to make one of his/her plots work8. The god has made a really bad bet with another god that they can make any old scrub of a priest into a hero, and the cleric in question was foisted on them by their opponent9. The cleric is a person who causes chaos in their wake, and the god is all about the chaos (I could totally see a cleric of Loki getting powers because Loki just likes the messes he/she causes instead of because the cleric is super-devoted to the cult of Loki.  In fact, Loki might pretend to be some other god just to hand out clerical powers.  Maybe there's a world in the multiverse where the only god is Loki just messing with people)10. The god doesn't grant powers so much as clerical powers are a ritualistic way for mortals to tap into the powers of the gods due to how the universe was created.  A god can deny a particular mortal access to his/her power but generally prefer to co-opt the power structure and use it to their own ends than outright deny access.Honestly in most of my campaigns clerical powers from most gods are essentially some combination of 5 and 10 (along with the fact that clerics in pretty much every campaign I run can also be devoted to a philosophy that has no gods at all behind it and yet still get magic powers - again by tapping into the greater universal truths via ritual.  A holdover from my days of running B/X and RC D&D where you could just have a cleric of Law or Neutrality and didn't need to worry about gods or Immortals if you didn't want to).  I don't see individual clerics as impressing gods to get their favor - it's more like clerics have access to the cheat codes of the universe through the gods and the gods are more than happy to let them use those cheat codes in exchange for being used as pawns in the great plots that they run against each other through the course of eternity...</blockquote>

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