Official Clergy

Polaris

Official Clergy:

This position can be applied for on-creation or earned in game. However, 90% of the time we will say you are better off earning official clergy in game. There will be exceptions.

Official representatives of a church do not have to be clerics, though clerics are the most common by far
Official clergy will receive gear appropriate to their Church
They may also receive in game support from the church when appropriate (DM's call on what constitutes "appropriate")
Churches with a presence in Arabel will naturally have more to offer than those with no influence in this region
Official clerics may speak on behalf of their churches

High Priest / Priestess:

**Only official clerics may be considered for the position of High Priest / Priestess. This position cannot be applied for on-creation

Clerics must have gained enough personal influence and fame in the church and the region to be considered for this position
High Priests act as the leaders of the faith in the region they are appointed for
High Priests gain rights under the law similar to nobility
High Priests can demand obedience of the entire church and their faithful for their decrees, for example mass excommunications or holy crusades**

SpiffyMeister

Some Elaboration cause I was bored.

@Polaris:

Official Clergy:

This position can be applied for on-creation or earned in game (We prefer this being earned in game.)

Official representatives of a church do not have to be clerics, though clerics are the most common by far Any class can follow any god. A Rogue can be a ranking cleric in the Church of Cyric, a Bard can be a ranking Priest of Oghma.

Official clergy will receive gear appropriate to their Church Generally, this comes in the form of a suit of armor, but the DMs can change this as they feel appropriate.

They may also receive in game support from the church when appropriate (DM's call on what constitutes "appropriate") The Church of Tyr in Arabel will have more weight than the Church of Silvanus. The Church of Malar will have the ear of the Lords far more than the Church of Eldath. The Church of Tempus will be universally respected by everyone. The Church of Cyric may well be feared, and in some circles, served, etcetera.

Churches with a presence in Arabel will naturally have more to offer than those with no influence in this region See above.

Official clerics may speak on behalf of their churches What does this mean? It means you can censor faithful for acting out of line and threaten their immortal souls. You can order them to perform penance or they risk being cast out by the Church and risk their immortal soul if they chose to serve said god regardless. You form Church policy and actions in a region unless there is a higher ranking clergy NPC in the area. For example. The Axe of Tempus can overrule his subordinate if he declares war on Eveningstar, but a Stormlord of Talos can invoke the wrath of the Church and its lay followers on a settlement for not appeasing the Stormlord. Your limit is your imagination

Cormyr has sacrilege laws. Any official ritual or ceremony conducted by your person is legally protected. This is not so with standard priests.

Official Clergy must tout the orthodox teachings of the Church. Heretical interpretations of dogma disqualify you from the Church unless you gain a sufficient following to convince the Church to shift its official teachings to the public at large. Or, a heretical, canon Church must exist, such as the Risen Sun Heresy, The Three-Faced Sun Heresy, Various Ilmateri Heresies, etcetera.

Heresies ought to be discussed with a DM. There is a reason why most deity's only have one Official Canon and Church. Deity's like Lathander can afford to have alternative presentations of dogma and teachings, gods such as Eldath cannot.

High Priest / Priestess:

**Only official clerics may be considered for the position of High Priest / Priestess. This position cannot be applied for on-creation

Clerics must have gained enough personal influence and fame in the church and the region to be considered for this position This is an earn in game position only. Generally, this is in the same vein as a Prestige Class.

High Priests act as the leaders of the faith in the region they are appointed for. Depending on the Size of the Church, and the number of layfolk, the sizes vary. For example, Tempus might have several High priests operating in Amn and Calishman, whereas Siamorphe will only have One High Priest or Priestess at any given time. If you have questions, inquiring with the DMs serves you best, but keep it relevant to the current setting.

High Priests gain rights under the law similar to nobility.

High Priests can demand obedience of the entire church and their faithful for their decrees, for example mass excommunications or holy crusades. This means that if you believe an entire city has abandoned the teachings of Lathander, a High Priest can condemn every soul who does not see the light to hell or the wall of the faithless. Whether Lathander agrees with their interpretation is up to him- but a High Priest is often seen as vessels as close to God as mortals can get barring Sainthood. Shrug off their warning and threats of excommunication at your peril.
-Divine Marches are a Gathering of Faithful to battle another faith, while a Secular target may be targeted for religious purposes (say, Talassans targetting the Library of a city with a shrine of Oghma in it to burn it down) it doesn't mean civil authorities won't get involved if they believe certain persons won't get involved- however, faith is a powerful force in the life of any mortal, and often, reason falls to the wayside in the fervor of great men and women.

How do you earn Official Clergy?

By presenting and teachings facets of the faith. What does your deity stand for? How is he relevant to the lives of adventurers? How can I convince the party I am with to praise the god I worship? By making your deity relevant to their lives and persons, they are one step closer to converting. Remember, the number 1 duty of a cleric is not to praise their god, it is to get converts to their god. A cleric who fails to earn his god Converts is not doing his job. Clerics who become popular and famous amongst adventurers are quickly snapped up by the local churches and placed in charge with public policy.

You can apply for the position. The app in question ought to detail why Official Clergy is important to the story you tell, in the same vein as nobility. Clergy must represent the Political interests of the Church as well as the souls of their parishioners. As a member of the Church, you are obligated to push for special treatment of your Church by the city- to have them look the other way when shady acts are being taken, or for public recognition when heroism is done in the name of God. There is no such thing as separation of Church and State in Cormyr- but the Country of Cormyr is very wary of making enemies of the gods unless it's very much to their benefit. Even in the realm of Thay, state-sponsored persecution of faith is a rare thing, though ritual attendance to the shrines of Kossuth is required. The Red Wizards might need the aid of Ilmater one day, and they permit his priests to operate relatively unmolested (provided they aren't stirring a slave revolt).

-What rank is my Cleric? All Church's have formal ranks and titles. For the Sanity of the Dms, assume, unless otherwise indicated the ranks are as followers: Laypriest, Official Clergy, High Priest. You may use whatever fancy title you want, but if you go around claiming you're the High Priest, Champion of Tyche, or representative of the Church when you are not, such Church's will take umbrage, and the sharp hand of reproof will come upon you. That isn't saying you shouldn't try, but don't be surprised if things happen.**

SpiffyMeister

All clerics are either Church Trained or found teachings relevant to said Church. Your cleric when he begins his journey is at the very bottom wrung of the Church ladder and stays there unless he is recognized for his deeds by his Church, no matter the level. Where in PnP the higher the level of the cleric might indicate higher the rank, in CoA, it's purely a meritocracy. You do not formulate Church policy, and though you may have influence amongst the city, you do not represent the Church. Basically, as a cleric off the road to Arabel, you should not be signing your posts as "The Church of Ilmater," it'd be in the same vein as a cashier in Walmart saying Walmart supports Marrying Gold Fish. No one is going to care, and if it causes a PR problem, the higher ups will spank you if they happen to be around, or, if it truly causes problems and costs your god followers, you will begin to lose powers.

SpiffyMeister

Updated to indicate the DM vastly prefers Official Clergy to be 'earned in game.'

Obviously, certain faiths such as Siamorphe, who values the status of one's birth over the actual talent of the character, have reasons to apply on creation. However, titled clergy is earned in game, more or less.

There may be other situations where you're character say- converted to Cyric while remaining in the church of Shar or Bane and uses their resources to fuck over said Faith…