tdenmark, well done. I like the little printed copy and I've read through and marked up the printed out PDF.
I just enjoy reading the different ways people imagine D&D. I love researching it and adding to my campaign what works best or I find inspiring. Here are some things that struck me that I may find a way to incorporate into my on-going campaigns:
I like your list of the many different kinds of characters that could count as clerics on p. 7., reminding us that character class in the original rule is a broad band, rather than a narrow description.
I already use exorcism as turn, but it was nice reading your description.
I LOVE your distinction between EVIL clerics and ANTI-clerics. I LOVE the idea that anti-clerics are forced to ONLY use the reverse of spells. AND they do NOT have a prohibition against blades! AND they cannot be raised from the dead or reincarnated, because they SOLD their SOUL to the devil. This is brilliant and I think I am going to employ this immediately!
I understand clerics to be knights of religious orders, IMC, and not the ordinary clerics of the church of law, etc. So the mundane duties of clerics is not really applicable IMC.
I already use conversion IMC, but I love your description of how it works, mechanically, and what some possible results might be. I am going to ponder and consider these. I especially like the idea that saving a dying NPC from death would have a strong likelihood of conversion associated with it.
I liked your discussion of who clerics worship. IMC the Church of Law has clergy and clerics are Knights of Religious Orders, like warrior monks. Evil Clerics are cult leaders who worship Chthonic (Lovecraftian) abominations. Anti-clerics are subversive members of the Church of Law, secretly pulling it down from within, desecrating altars and worshiping devils where they ought not to. Pagan deities have priests, and, in terms of character class, these are MUs.
I like the idea that there could be a kind of pantheon that a cleric was well versed in, praying to the appropriate patron per spell. I like the idea that spells could match to patrons. I could do this as angels and saints of the church of law, since I don't have a pantheon of gods. I would even love to write it out in the spell lists! Like, St. Lazarus' Liturgy of the Raising of the Dead. It feels very Vancian, but for clerical magic. Cool.
It was helpful to have you classify most clerical spells as either healing, protective, or knowledge-forming. I'd like to go through the spell lists and think this through.
The Divine Aspects Table on p 27. was fun. I also like JG stuff for this kind of thing.
I also love the idea that you might have general clerical spells but also unique spells for the cleric's particular patron (or, in my case, for their particular religious order and its mission).
Good ideas for clerical magic items. I really like the idea for Holy Oil. I am considering adding this to my campaign.
Saints and their return is a really good idea. I am already deploying something like that for neutral, pagan, petty gods (deified historical personages). It would be easy to extend this to the church / anti-church as well.
I like the idea of Relics serving as a Holy Symbols but also having unique divine magical properties and giving alignment shock like magic swords. Actually, this is brilliant and I am going to try to figure out how to work this in.
I have not run my campaign so far that clerics need to research their spells in the same way that MUs do. But I do like the idea of Theological Research. So much so it inspired me to come up with some branching tables with titles for inner-canon / apocryphal scriptures and theological tomes. Looking forward to using it.
The stuff on gods as monsters you can stat up and who can get killed I really like. I think I could balance between what you suggest and the folks you disagree with. I could make the most famous of the syncretic gods - you know, Zeus, Athena, Arjuna, all that, to be realities that re-manifest from a deeper dimension if "killed." But demi gods and petty gods can definitely bite the dust!
Thanks for the reading list and reminding me of how important Dunsany is for this part of the legendaria we are engaging with this game.
I could say a lot more, but I've already written a lot. If I do use some of this in play I will try to remember to circle back round and give you a play report.
Thanks for this gift to the community.
Fight on!
