Holy water creation

[bestialwarlust]

In my game I let clerics make holy water if they have pure clean water ( has to be drinkable) they have to have specially prepared vials. If they have both of these a casting of the bless spell and protection from evil will then make the water holy. How do you handle it in your games? do you allow player's to make it?

[talysman]

Hasn't actually been tried in-game, but I have a procedure:

1. Get land for a shrine and sanctify it;
2. Build an altar at the shrine and sanctify it;
3. Sanctify a font or basin;
4. Put the basin on the altar, fill with pure water, and sanctify it. Repeat this last step when desired.

Sanctifying means making a reaction roll. The first roll of the day by a cleric or for a given location adds double the cleric's level. At least one of the results must be Good (9+), and none can be 2, which curses the target of the sanctification. Holy water must be stored in a sanctified vessel, or otherwise must be used before sunrise or sunset, whichever comes first.

[jdjarvis]

If a pC cleric has access to a font or spring or pool (depending on the faith) I'll let them make holy-water. Unless it is the church they run they are still going to have to cough up a donation to the church/shrine/temple the font is associated with. The god's may work in mysterious ways but the church hierarchy lives off of donations and tithes and can't lose an income stream to the needs of a wandering militant cleric.

[Deleted]

To make a magic item, you must be a Wizard.

Therefore, to make Holy Water, you must be a Patriarch.

I'd also point out that neither Bless nor Protection from Evil are permanent spells. I might let a lower level cleric do that and it would work for as long as the shorter-duration spell lasts.

[jdjarvis]

Is Holy Water a magic item? I never really considered it such. Magically manufactured possibly but not itself a magic item. It's the cheapest magic item in the game if it is.

Holy Water osas a real odd-ball item on the equipment list; from an old blog post on OD&D equipment:

Holy water....so what is this doing on the general equipment list? It' supposed to be special isn't it? If I showed up at the local church with a pocketful of $20.00 bills and plastic bottles to fill up at the font I'm not to sure that would go over well. I think I'd be able to take one small amount for free, tanking up on a few quarts would be frowned on.

[Porphyre]

I suppose it dépends how you explain it to the local priest. But I don't think he's going to buy the "it's to repel undead " story.

[tetramorph]

Roman Catholic Churches have vats of the lustral water in the nave. Any body can come in and take some home for use w signing the cross in prayer or informally blessing rooms, etc

In the legendarium from which it sprang (classical ancient catholic Christianity) it certainly requires no Patriarch to pull off. Any priest can bless water. So, perhaps priest or vicar level?

Any clean water can be blessed by any priest anywhere. He just uses a blessing for the day (in game terms).

Why is it so cheap? Because it is really free. But you make an appropriate votive offering so as not to offend heaven and the hierarchy. Neither of which ever goes well for a character, real world or game world.

[Haldo Bramwise]

No, no. You just boil the hell out of it.

[geoffrey]

Jun 13, 2014 18:19:59 GMT -6 Haldo Bramwise said:

No, no. You just boil the hell out of it.

[Falconer]

Jun 13, 2014 15:18:53 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

Any priest can bless water. So, perhaps priest or vicar level?

Agreed, any Village Priest can do it.

[krusader74]

The following details would overwhelm a typical game of D&D. But they may prove useful in a campaign with a lot of emphasis on religion, for example, if you are Adventuring in the time of the Crusades...

WAYS TO USE HOLY WATER
There are two main ways I'd let a PC use a holy symbol like holy water:

1. For a cleric to cast any spell or turn the undead, he must make use of some kind of religious symbol. Any of the following will do:

• Holy water
• Crucifix
• Rosary
• The scapular with the investiture
• St. Benedict's Medal AKA "the devil-chasing medal." These were used as early as the 11th century. The reverse side of the medal carries the "Vade retro satana" ("Step back, Satan") formula.

These objects must be properly sanctified by a village priest (3rd level cleric) or higher, using the appropriate blessings from the Rituale Romanum. Such a ceremony would actually take 45 minutes or more. The priest must be attired appropriately; so he must first bless his vestments. The vessels containing the water, salt, chrism, ashes, wine, etc. to be used must also be blessed. Finally, the water, salt, etc. must themselves be blessed. In these prayers, the objects being blessed are called "creatures" (they were created by God), and the blessings contain an exorcism to dispel evil spirits from them, e.g., "God's creature, water, I cast out the demon from you, in the name of ..."

2. Clerics may also use holy symbols (like holy water) as a magic item just like magic-users use scrolls and potions, namely, to store a spell for later use. The cleric must have the appropriate level, and spend the appropriate amount of time and money, i.e.,

• 100 Gold Pieces/Spell/Spell Level/Week (a 5th level spell would require 500 GP and 5 weeks.)
• Healing: 250 Gold Pieces + 1 week

The actual preparations often include rituals influenced from earlier pagan practices., e.g., the priest will drop silver coins into the water, add herbs like hyssop, and use incantations from the Lesser Key of Solomon. None of this is considered witchcraft, because there are no appeals to dark powers and the underlying intentions are good. So a cleric might want to add one of the following spells to a vessel of holy water:

• Purify food & water (Cleric-1) for 1 dozen people
• Cure light wounds (Cleric-1) restore d6+1 HP
• Protection from evil (Cleric-1) +1 Saving throws, -1 HD of attackers, 12 turns
• Bless (Cleric-2) +1 morale, +1 attacks
• Cure disease (Cleric-3)
• Protection from evil 10' (Cleric-4)
• Cure serious wounds (Cleric-4) restore 2d6+2 HP
• Neutralize Poison (Cleric-4)
• Dispel evil (Cleric-5) 3" radius, 1 turn

FOUR KINDS OF HOLY WATER
Note that there are 4 distinct kinds of holy water:

• Holy water per se, of the kind found in the stoup, which has been blessed with a small amount of salt as a preservative. This is the holy water used in aspersions and blessings. The prayers used to sanctify the salt and water are listed here in the Rituale Romanum. Another account of the process used to sanctify holy water can be found in this article on Traditional Holy Water.
• Baptismal holy water, to which a slight amount of chrism (anointing oil) and the oil of catechumens has been added. This is used in church baptisms. Epiphany water commemorates the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan by St. John. There's an account of the ceremony used to prepare it here.
• Gregorian water, also called the "water of consecration." It is used by bishops at the consecration of a church. It contains small amounts of wine, salt, and ashes. N.B. priests and bishops need the permission of a patriarch to make Gregorian water. An account of the ritual used to prepare it may be found here.
• Easter water, which is distributed to the faithful on Easter Sunday for use at home. Note that it is impermissible for a priest to sanctify holy water on Easter or Pentecost.

NON-CLERICS MAY SOMETIMES MAKE HOLY WATER TOO!
It's not always the case that a cleric is needed to bless holy water or other objects. For example, sometime between 310-403AD, St. Epiphanius (Contra haeres., lib. I, haer. xxx) wrote

at Tiberias a man named Joseph poured water on a madman, having first made the sign of the cross and pronounced these words over the water: "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, crucified, depart from this unhappy one, thou infernal spirit, and let him be healed!" Joseph was converted an subsequently used the same proceeding to overcome witchcraft; yet, he was neither a bishop nor a cleric.

So the house-rule I would use is: Any person may sanctify water just like a priest if he meets the following criteria:

• Lawful (good) alignment
• Sin-free (hasn't committed any sins since his last confession)
• Wisdom 13+. And he must pass a Wisdom check, i.e., d20 <= WIS.

In addition, once per month, there is a small chance that such a lay person may be able to impart one of the spells listed above to the object being sanctified:

• Wis 13-15: 5% base chance - spell level.
• Wis 16-17: 10% base chance - spell level
• Wis 18: 20% base chance - spell level

E.g., a Wis 13 character has a (5-4)=1% chance of imparting Neutralize Poison to holy water; i.e. a 5% base chance minus the spell level 4. He may only try once per game month. There is a +5% bonus for attempting this on the night of a new moon. He won't know if the ritual succeeded until he tries it out.

WHERE TO GET HOLY WATER
There are three places where PCs can find fonts full of holy water:

• Stationary fonts, placed at the entrance to churches. These are usually made of bronze, marble, granite, or any other solid stone, and also terracotta. They consist of a small tub or basin sometimes detached or resting on a base or pedicle, and sometimes embedded in the wall or in one of the pillars of the church (called a stoup).
• Portable fonts, placed for aspersions and sacramental rites.
• Private fonts, in which holy water is kept in private houses.

WHO MAY TAKE HOLY WATER FROM A FONT
Unfortunately, not everyone is allowed to use water from any font. PCs will often encounter inscriptions like the following:

Clericus et miles; pergant ad cetera viles
Nam locus hic primus; decet illos vilis et imus

Roughly: only clerics and knights may dip their fingers in this font; peasants and laborers go elsewhere.

Even worse, in the 1200s, it was feared that heretics, witches and satanists were taking holy water to be used for blasphemy and black magic. As a result, the Constitutions of Archbishop Edmund Rich (1236) prescribe that

Fonts are to be kept under lock and key, because of witchcraft (sortilegia). Similarly the chrism and sacred oil are kept locked up.

Therefore, PCs may have a great deal of trouble getting holy water unless a member of their party is a 3rd level cleric and has enough time to sanctify it.

COLLECTING THE HOLY WATER
This site has pictures of terracotta flasks which pilgrims used to take holy water with them to the Holy Land circa 480-650AD.

Priests sprinkled people entering the Church by dipping branches into the font. For this purpose hyssop, palm, and boxwood, or wisps of straw were employed. Later, the tail of the fox replaced the branches. In French the fox was called goupil, hence the word goupillon for holy water sprinkler.

By the 1200s, it would be considered a serious breech of protocol if someone simply went up to a font and collected holy water in a pot or a waterskin or some other profane vessel. Holy water was held in such respect that it was not taken from the font unless by means of an aspersorium (holy water sprinkler), attached by a small chain:

WEAPONIZING HOLY WATER
I've heard stories that Crusaders would use aspergillum as weapons. They look very mace-like. An aspergill has a handle with a metal ball at one end. The ball has a lid. The lid was opened and it was filled with water. There were tiny holes at the tip where the holy water would sprinkle out. The idea was that you could baptize your opponent as you bludgeoned him to death, so that he would go to heaven. Here is a photo of an aspergill:

HYGIENE AND HOLY WATER
Holy water fonts have been identified as a potential source of bacterial and viral infection. In the late 19th century, bacteriologists found staphylococci, streptococci, coli bacilli, Loeffler's bacillus, and other bacteria in samples of holy water taken from a church in Sassari, Italy.

According to this recent report, Most holy water contaminated with fecal matter: study,

86 percent of water samples from holy sources contain fecal matter, and every milliliter of holy water contained up to 62 million bacteria, none of it safe to drink.

One of the commonly found microbes, campylobacter, causes inflammatory diarrhea.

[tetramorph]

Wow, thanks for the awesome detail, krusader.

I think, especially in light of your example of the holy man making holy water and not even being a priest, I would not require PC priests to perform all of those ritual requirements you describe, unless they wanted to instill another clerical "spell" within the holy water, as you describe.

Holy Water is particularly great for undead and for exorcisms. Seems like one could also house rule up holy salt as well, especially for demon encounters.

Awesome material for house rulings.

Thanks

[LouGoncey]

That's if holy water is created in the Judeo-Christian way in your world. It could be created by a virgin who passes a pitcher over a goats freshly cut throat wound...

[Falconer]

Hm, well, the Lawful Cleric in OD&D is clearly derived in all its aesthetics from the Christian holy man. A cross and holy water are his accoutrements; Priest and Bishop are the ranks to which he aspires; his spells are straight out of the Bible. Further, in the concept of Law and Chaos as expounded by Poul Anderson, Law is quite explicitly the “side” of Christ and Christianity. So, I think some of the assumptions in this thread have been valid. Of course, any DM is free to turn OD&D on its head and do whatever he wants in his world. But to me, the sort of act you describe — and its resulting potion — seems to me to be Chaotic; possibly Druidic/Neutral at best.

[LouGoncey]

I get your point.

But Lawful can be interpreted as one who follows the rules or laws laid down by society.

Just riffing to make a 'contra' example for those who play in strange worlds.

[Porphyre]

Some thoughts about the pseudo-Christian trappings of the D&D Cleric:

The holy water tetramorph describes (i-e: easily blessed by any priest and fairly cheap) is something that we see in our mostly secularised society.
But in a pseudo-medieval setting, heavily borrowing on the imagery of the Romanticism (just consider the mace-wielding cleric), the Church is the one depicted in the Robin Hood tales or Walter Scott's novels, rife with corpulent bishops, greedy abbots and the traffic of indulgences. Not the Church that is going to give holy sacrements for free...

[Falconer]

I think you have to be careful. While the English loved to poke fun at (and expose the hypocrisy of) greedy abbots, that doesn’t amount to cynicism towards The Church, as such, which was pretty universally believed to be divinely instituted.

Anyway, holy water in D&D isn’t free, no.

[kent]

Jun 23, 2014 15:08:13 GMT -6 Falconer said:

"The Church, as such, which was pretty universally believed to be divinely instituted..

This is a meaningless phrase. We don't understand the ordinary piety of contemporary people who aren't religious fanatics and have even less understanding of historical religious appreciation. Contemporary religious types are indifferent, contradictory or plain stupid under simple cross examination and there is no reason to assume, in the absence of evidence, that the average medieval person had anything other than, ad hoc, indifferent and foolish beliefs surrendered when convenient.

[Falconer]

Bah, the average medieval person went to Mass daily, and could recite the Credo from memory. Let’s leave aside the the depth of their piety or understanding. That would, indeed, be impossible to measure. Anyway, I wasn’t talking about the average medieval person, I was talking about literature. I’ve never read any medieval literature that questioned the Church, even when it poked fun at churchmen. Have you?

[Finarvyn]

First, the cleric has to drink a LOT of water...

[Red Baron]

"Oh my god! Its zombies!"

Cleric: "Hold up, let me just unbutton my pants"

[Finarvyn]

Jun 24, 2014 5:09:09 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

"Oh my god! Its zombies!"

Cleric: "Hold up, let me just unbutton my pants"

Well, for Turn Undead to work we already know that the Cleric has to expose himself to the zombies. This seems to be the next logical step.

[tetramorph]

I like the general direction of the discussion here! Way to keep it fun. It wouldn't be great for this to degenerate into a discussion of religion / Christianity / medieval Christianity.

I do want to agree with the point made above about the legendarium, however. The reason why the Robin Hood stories mock clerics is because the audience gets the hypocrisy and expects more from the church which preaches a gospel of love, peace and poverty. They expected the church to be better than most of her clerics. That is why Robin Hood is portrayed as faithful: he sneaks in to church whenever he gets a chance and he has a special devotion to "our Lady."

Anyways, priests can bless water. It is free, but you had better make an offering!

[Deleted]

Jun 14, 2014 3:26:56 GMT -6 krusader74 said:

Such a ceremony would actually take 45 minutes or more.

If turn undead took 45 min or more to cast, there would be no point, the battle would be over long before that.

[Porphyre]

Jun 23, 2014 19:54:13 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Bah, the average medieval person went to Mass daily, and could recite the Credo from memory. Let’s leave aside the the depth of their piety or understanding. That would, indeed, be impossible to measure. Anyway, I wasn’t talking about the average medieval person, I was talking about literature. I’ve never read any medieval literature that questioned the Church, even when it poked fun at churchmen. Have you?

I'm not that sure about it. In popular litterature, the satirical genre of fabliaux and farces, could be violentely critical against greedy priests and lecherous monks. Le Roman de Reynart also has some accents of satire.
This anticlerical feeling was stronger in XIIth century southern France, were it probably make ground for the succes of the catharism, but english litterature wasn't exempted of such anticlericalism. In England however, this had more grounds in the political opposition between the crown and the bishops (Thomas Beckett, anyone?). Even Chaucer's Canterbury Tales have critical chapters against unworthy clergymen.

www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/anticint.htm
scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1203&context=masters-theses

(end of the thread-derailing)

Anyway, that wasn't my propos, because, in my idea, the D&D depiction of the cleric is less fashioned according to real medieval clergymen, and more in the manner of the latter (and somewhat erroneous) XIX century imagery (the idea that warring bishops only used bludgeoning weapons being an example).

On the other hand, even considering that, in your D&D campaign, religion is serious business for everyone , it doesn't exclude that Holy water making isn't something reserved to Bishops and Patriarchs and something you have to pay for. On the contrary: the more the religion (and the Church) is held in reverence, the more you consider religious items to be precious things that you cannot give away for nothing.

[jdjarvis]

Some wandering militant priest starts turning out the holy water for free I suppose he'd best worry about the attentions of the auditor general, the local bishops, and bothersome inquisitors.

[Malcadon]

There should be instructions on how to use and make Holy Water. After all, there are long-winded instructions for this:

[tog]

This all reminds me - there's an interesting comment in the glossary of the DMG which says this about holy water:

Useful as a weapon against undead or to slow the effects of poison.

I've searched the books, but I can't find any rules pertaining to holy water and poison. The DMG section on holy/unholy water mentions drinking it to stave off transformation into undead/lycantrope, but not poison.It's not listed as a material component for Slow Poison, either.

[aldarron]

I don't know why this bit was dropped, but probably its' loss wasn't intentional. In any case here is the relevant quote from the 1973 D&D draft (Dalluhn/BtPbD):

"Purify Food or Water: By this spell a Cleric can purify any amount of food or water in his possession, as well as create Holy Water. NOTE: This does not neutralize poison."

Bk I p23