Purposes for Paladins and Militant Orders

As I continue in my sporadic attempts at world-building, I've recently turned my attention back to Clerics and Paladins, as well as to one aspect of their inspiration: medieval European religious orders.

Now, I realize that, especially when it comes to Clerics, Hammer Horror films, especially those that depict Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (usually played by Peter Cushing) as a vampire hunter, usually opposed by Christopher Lee's Dracula (I actually chipped away at the list of classic influences on D&D I, as a "grognardling," haven't experienced by watching the original Horror of Dracula yesterday) are a major, if not the primary influence, and I don't think that they are without value even in a setting where Clerics and Paladins are members of religious orders instead of professors independently seeking out and destroying the undead. For example, Van Helsing's personal mission sounds an awful lot like, "seeking out and destruction of evil heretics [substitute "vampires" here] and their lands and also of those who rebel against the faith of the holy church." The wording comes from the mission of the Militia of the Faith of Jesus Christ, formed mainly to combat Cathars in southern France. Van Helsing even goes so far as to call vampirism a "cult" in Horror of Dracula.


Van Helsing, though, is obviously not the only inspiration for D&D's Clerics, as Clerics in D&D are not (at least not universally and primarily) professors, but are clergy in some religion. I've read multiple places that Odo of Bayeux (shown wielding a mace in the Bayeux Tapestry) and Bishop Turpin, a Paladin companion of Roland, are also inspirations for Clerics.

It makes sense, then, to look at actual religious orders to get inspiration for beefing up the background, organizational, world-building side of Clerics and Paladins, especially since the trend it my world-building currently concentrates on tying PCs to the setting through various class-based organizations. In practice, this has meant a lot of looking through Wikipedia, trying to figure out the difference between Clerics Regular and Canons Regular and trying to figure out what kinds of orders might produce adventurers in a fantasy setting. I don't really have enough to show anything of value for Clerics yet, but I chose to look concentrate on military orders (seeing as there are fewer of them than non-military Catholic orders) and have a few things that might be profitable for gaming even in this early stage of my research.

For one thing, the purposes of military orders varied widely, and most seem to have more than one purpose:

1. Providing care in a hospital (which might specialize in a certain awful disease, like leprosy) and protecting the hospital with force
2. Protecting pilgrims to certain lands or certain holy sites
3. Reclaiming lost territory from infidels
4. Ransoming captives (this seems to have meant soliciting from donors)
5. Ensuring the proper burial of fallen Crusaders
6. Defending frontier areas from infidels
7. Inquisition and invading areas where heretics ruled
8. Keeping the peace in a certain area
9. Improving ties between the Church and the nobility and rulers of an area
10. Defending the rights and freedoms of the Church

And there's a handy little d10 chart. Roll 1d4 times to determine the purposes of an order you're creating for your setting.

Some Clerical Reputation Mechanics

I recently decided to include Clerics in my game (currently that's not the case) and, as part of figuring out how I want to do this, posted a question about creating pantheons on Google+ and got some good responses and also a few links to Alex Shroeder's blog where he outlines how he's been running deities and Clerics in his games. I found his post about reputation especially interesting. I've reworked it a little bit and present it below. Along with tracking the alignment of my players, I'm hoping to expand this system and to use it not only for Cleric PCs' religious standing but for all PCs' standings with different factions or NPCs.

Feedback appreciated.
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Clerics begin play with a reputation rating of 1 with their deity. At the end of each session in which a Cleric has performed an act on the following table, the Cleric’s player rolls the die that corresponds to the most significant act of the Cleric that day; if the rolled result is higher than the Cleric’s current reputation score, the Cleric’s reputation score increases by one.

d4: Fulfilled intermediate tenet of faith or service related to single believer
d6: Fulfilled major tenet of faith, service related to single local congregation or saved life or body of single believer
d8: Related to single order or sect, saved lives or bodies of single local congregation
d10: Related to whole religion or a servant of the god, saved lives or bodies of entire order or sect
d12: Related to the god, saved the lives or bodies of whole religion

Losing reputation is easier and more drastic than gaining reputation. At the end of a session in which a Cleric has blatantly violated a tenet of the Cleric’s faith or done an active disservice related to the Cleric's faith, the Cleric’s player rolls the die that corresponds to the act of the highest magnitude of the Cleric’s that day. The number rolled on the die is subtracted from the Cleric’s reputation score; in this way, negative reputations are possible. 

If the Cleric has performed both reputable and disreputable acts within a single session, increase the disreputable die size by two and compare the two dice; subtract the smaller die’s sides from the larger die’s sides and roll a die with the number of sides that results, applying the result towards or against the reputation in correspondence to whether the larger die was reputable or disreputable.

For example, Kolath the Cleric of Zeus, within a single session, stole some gold from a member of the congregation of the local temple of Zeus and also helped the rest of the party fend off an army of goblins intent on killing the entire local town. The theft from the fellow follower of Zeus corresponds to the d4 and saving the town, which includes the local congregation of Zeus, corresponds to the d8. Adding two to the four sides of the d4 and subtracting the resulting six from eight leaves a d2 for Kolath's player to roll to see whether Kolath's reputation rises with Zeus or not. Unless Kolath's reputation with Zeus is already lower than 2, Zeus is so non-plussed with Kolath's theft that even saving an entire congregation is not enough to impress Zeus.

Reputation with one's deity is important because Third through Seventh Level Cleric Spells are granted to Clerics by higher powers. In order for spells of a certain level to be granted to a Cleric, the Cleric must both be of sufficient level to have spell slots of that level (like the "normal," as-written Cleric in most systems) and must have a reputation rating with the higher power of at least the same level as the spell.

The DMG, Section by Section, Part 17: Spell Explanations – Clerics

Gary now embarks upon six and a half pages of explaining spells. A good bit of this is expressly banning certain liberal interpretations that players might attempt to use with spells, much as Gary previously dealt with the abuse of Thief abilities, but a good deal of it is also explaining tactics that can be used with certain spells or just plain explaining how to execute the effects of a spell from behind the DM screen. Today let's hit the Cleric spells I find interesting.

Light & Continual Light
Gary quite helpfully points out that both of these spells can be cast on an enemy's eyes, effectively blinding them (permanently, or until dispelled, in the case of Continual Light), as well as suggesting that Continual Light can be cast on objects and then used in place of torches.

Augury
The idea of allowing any kind of prophecy or means of knowing the future in a sandbox game has always left me feeling uncomfortable and unsure regarding how to handle it, but Gary gives some decent guidelines here: basically, it's OK to just go off of what you guess will happen. The example he gives is if a player asks, "Will we do well if we venture onto the third level?" and a nasty troll guards a great treasure near the entrance to level 3 then an appropriate response is, "All who survive will be rich!"

Dispel Magic
Gary gives some nice mechanics here. Any item this is cast at that fails a saving throw is inoperative for one round; items only get saving throws if they are in a character's possession, and only have to make saving throws if they are specifically targeted. Relics and artifacts (I don't think Gary's discussed the difference between those two categories yet) are immune to this effect.

Atonement
The referee is encouraged to gauge the player/PC's sincerity of repentance and require penance accordingly. If the referee believes the player/PC is truly repentant, a few coins in the money box may suffice to fully restore the PC, while insane, nearly impossible quests, such as capturing and sacrificing rival high priests, may be handed out to players/PCs who don't seem sincere. Personally, I like the help of an actual alignment charting system to help me gauge just how much a PC is in trouble, rather than having to figure this out by ear.

Plane Shift
Planar adventures have never really interested me (I'm certainly open to that changing in the future), but I find Gary's description of each plane having a corresponding musical note, with the potential for an octave of planes, to be intriguing. Not enough for me to build on right now, but if I ever do run planar adventures, I'll be sure to incorporate the "planar scale" into the way plane shifting works. Has anyone seen planes run like this? Do any settings use this at all?

Quest
Counterintuitively, at least for me, characters are more vulnerable or susceptible to this spell the more they agree with the Cleric casting the spell, not even receiving a saving throw if the quest is just and they share religions with the Cleric. Also interestingly, characters who agree to a quest, even if forced to do so, do not receive a saving throw.

Holy/Unholy Word
I wasn't aware that there were any spells that banished beings back to their native planes, but this spell does exactly that. I'm undecided on whether to allow this spell in my game since I had expected to get so much traction out of the Carcosan banishing rituals that require special components. We'll see what happens.

The DMG, Section by Section, Part 15: Character Spells – Spell Acquisition

This next section is super interesting to me, which, along with real life lately, is why I've taken such a long time to write it up. Expect some non-DMG magic posts in the near future.

Day-to-Day Acquisition of Cleric Spells

The big thing about Cleric spells, that I actually don't think I've heard about in ~3 years of following OSR blogs, is that Clerics don't get their spells directly from one source, but from three:

–1st and 2nd level spells are acquired through the Cleric's training
–3rd, 4th and 5th level spells are granted to the Cleric by supernatural servants of the Cleric's deity
–6th and 7th level spells are granted directly to the Cleric by the Cleric's deity

This is very interesting flavor, first of all, especially since the interaction with the supernatural servants is left very open ended and I think it has a lot of room for roleplaying, but the main practical ramifications of this three-tiered system seems to be that Clerics have trouble getting access to high-level spells if they haven't been acting in accordance with the desires and ethos of their deity. Basically, every time they pray for spells above 2nd level they also get chewed out and told to atone for any bad stuff they've done. DMs are supposed to keep track of concrete actions the Cleric has performed that don't line up with what the deity is all about and lay them out whenever the Cleric prays for spells. The Cleric's deity is even stricter than the supernatural servants, but both will give quests to Clerics that are difficult enough that Gary says that the Cleric will be granted the spells necessary to complete the quest. This all applies to Paladins and Rangers, at least when it comes to spells, as well, which strikes me as interesting, since it seems to be saying that Paladins can greatly displease their deities without breaking the terms of their Paladin-hood.

Gary also outlines the hardships involved in Clerics switching deities (the second time they switch deities, they'll just be struck dead).

Acquisition of Magic-User Spells

In AD&D all 1st level Magic-Users are newly "graduated" apprentices of other Magic-Users of at least 6th level. Their master, as a parting present, gives them a spell book with four spells in it: Read Magic and one defensive, one offensive and one miscellaneous spell, randomly chosen by rolling d10s. It seems that AD&D has exactly thirty 1st level spells, but since every Magic-User gets Read Magic and Nystul's Magic Aura and Tenser's Floating Disc are never given to a Magic-User by a master, a roll of 10 on one of these rolls means that the spell is chosen by the player. This is a really nice system, I think, and it's replicated and slightly tweaked in John's awesome document here. (Thanks, John! I'm planning on using your document as the foundation for spells in my games from now on. I wish you had a blog I could link to.)

Gary also hits on the effect of Intelligence on the Magic-User's ability to learn spells. First of all, Intelligence will limit the number of spells of any one level a Magic-User can know. Secondly, with the important exception of the original four spells in the spell book given to him by his master, a Magic-User has a percentage chance to be able to learn a spell that must be rolled when trying to learn a spell; if the Magic-User fails, apparently he will never be able to learn the spell.

Acquisition of Illusionists' Spells

Illusionists differ from Magic-Users in two important ways: Firstly, they don't use Read Magic, but instead use a secret language that all Illusionists know for their spells; Read Magic, or anything of the sort, is not needed. Secondly, they only have 12 1st level spells, which aren't divided into offensive, defensive and miscellaneous categories; the player simply rolls a d12 three times to determine the 1st level Illusionist's starting spells. There is no mention of whether Intelligence affects the ability of an Illusionist to learn spells, but my guess, from the way the section on Illusionists seems to imply that Illusionists work like Magic-Users in every way except for the exceptions listed, that this works the same way for Illusionists as for Magic-Users. My guess is that this is spelled out in the PHB.

Spells Beyond Those At Start

Each time a Magic-User levels up (not when they gain access to a new spell level, which was news to me) he gains a new spell, presumably of the highest spell level available to him. Gary is silent on how to determine which spell this is or what the in-game justification is (I assume that at least some of this is included in the PHB). This means that unless a Magic-User finds spells in another way, the he will always only have a number of spells equal to his level plus four.

Magic-Users, then, will be constantly seeking to find spells in other ways. The first way Gary discusses is getting spells from other Magic-Users. "Superior players will certainly cooperate; thus, spells will in all probability be exchanged between PC magic-users to some extent," Gary says, and advises the DM neither to suggest nor discourage doing this.

PC Magic-Users obtaining spells from NPC Magic-Users, however, is another matter entirely and Gary expects DMs to play the Vancian-style zero-sum game Magic-User culture to the hilt. Gary advises that PCs buying spells from NPC Magic-Users should "pay so dearly for [spells] in money, magic items, and quests that the game is hardly worth the candle." Gary assumes that the PCs will still pay for these new spells, thereby draining the PCs of excess wealth. Henchmen and hireling Magic-Users will offer only slightly better terms: if an employer proposes a trade of spells, the price will be a spell of equal value plus a bonus; if a PC compatriot of the employer proposes the trade, the price is double the value of the spell and a large bonus (from the example, it sounds like sets of three expendable items or a single magic item is a good guideline for the larger bonus). Gary does allow for the previous nature of the relationship between the PC making the request and the henchman/hireling, as well as the personality of the henchman/hireling, to modify the price of trading spells.

Gary points out that this extreme reluctance to share spells on the part of NPCs will make spells found in dungeons or through research extremely valuable to the PCs Magic-Users. He states that, "Magic-users will haunt dusty libraries and peruse musty tomes in the hopes of gleaning but a single incantation to add to their store of magic." I'm unsure whether that is a direct reference to spell research or a separate, flavorful phenomenon that Gary doesn't flesh out; my guess is that it's the former.

One mechanic I wish Gary would have included is how to handle NPCs coming to the PCs for spells; surely every other Magic-User is just as desperate for spells as the PCs, right? So why wouldn't they be coming to the PCs, willing to make unfair trades for the new spells the PCs found in their last dungeon delve? Mechanically, this would even out the zero-sum game so that the PCs don't always get the short end of the stick. This might ruin the constant leeching of money from Magic-User PCs, but it also doesn't strain my suspension of disbelief.