Cleric Alignments

Remove all ads!

I was wondering how appropriate it would be for a LE god of undeath (he's a lich on top of that) to have LN clerics. Should limits on standard "one step" notion of cleric alignment apply to the gods preferences in cleric moral/ethical beliefs or in the nature of the god's portfolio?

On another note, how much power does a church have over clerical alignment? As I understand, clerical power is obtained through religious study so if we have a distance deity, would it be appropriate for the church of that god to be able to limit the alignment of clerics? It would seem that the Favored Soul, not the Cleric, has the luxury of casting divine spells without any divine training.

 

Deity: I do wish he'd be a little more evil, but he is doing my work and following my rules... Well, they can't all be perfect.

Which are they more likely to use: Detect Good to screen out spies, or Detect Evil to ensure 'purity'? Not to mention that some religions need all the worshippers they can get, evil or not. Now if they've got a particularly strong following, maybe they can afford to be more picky, but as a god of undeath, I find that rather unlikely...barring special circumstances in your setting, of course. (I would imagine Ravenloft has a lot of scary people, but also a lot of different cults for them to split into.)

 

Rules-wise... sure, it's A-okay, but if you somehow feel it's appropriate ("All my minions must eat babies!") you can make an exception to the rule.

Your second question is hard to answer because -- and this is something I really dislike about D&D -- there is no explicit context and setting in the core material. These things are left up to you as a DM, and you can direct it as you see fit; do you want a strict, totalitarian church based on hierarchy and tradition, or a looser and less organized faith?

 

Ah sorry Fel, I didn't explain that the second question was for a God whose portfolio includes Judgement, Justice and Truth and has the largest and most powerful church in "all the lands". What is suppose to be happening, seeing as this particular deity is quite close from passing beyond a greater deity into the ranks of an over diety (the deity has a divine rank of 20) and isn't particularly involved in the world or particularly understood, the Church is particularly malleable to material forces.

Clerics of LN now make up the majority of his clerics, but on top of that, unknown to a number of his clerics, a number of his clerics are unable to even draw their deity's divine powers and are instead being fed power through a particularly evil Greater Deity (who also has a number of clerics in that church who pay lip service to the good god, but in reality worship the evil god). Essentially the church's paladins and inquisitors are currently fighting a loosing battle in their own church.

What I've been thinking is because of this dynamic, the powerful LN clerics simply have the church deny religious instruction to those who are not lawful in nature as LG clerics can be put in their place through the religion's heirarchy, but NG clerics are far more likely to change the current make up. I was thinking of having the deity is more reliant upon sending divine revelation to particular individuals who seek to do their god's instruction as a way of undoing what he dislikes about his Church's action (he reserves smiting for those who blaspheme him).

I suppose NG clerics might work well as formly LG clerics who've gone renegade and been excommunicated from their church. "Heretics" who still possess their god's will (though the church would claim that this NG clerics have cast their lot with other gods).

And note this is not and I repeat not an attack on the Catholic Church. I really just couldn't have a massive power differencial between good and evil on the material world and still maintain a relatively neutrally aligned humanity.

[ October 19, 2006, 18:20: Message edited by: Ilmater's Suffering ]