Document maintainer: Wilco Copperjaw

Editor note: The concept of this domain is currently under development. Much work is left to be done before it can be used.

Introduction

Divine magic is the domain that gives players access to the powers of gods. The skills in this domain are the skills of priests and other clergy and of their most devoted followers. The clergy is an important part of any society. They have an important role in bringing the teachings of their deity to the people, and to bring the power of the people to their deity. This domain requires a great deal of social interaction, you will be seeking out new followers for your deity, guiding followers and performing public ceremonies.

Ceremonies are the cornerstone of this domain. A ceremony is a ritual, performed by a priest, and attended by the faithful. Once every day, every character can give worshipping points to a priest. With worshipping points priests can then perform ceremonies in which they will give blessings to those in attendance. A blessing is a temporary power granted by a deity, such as the power to resist stumble effects until the next day. The stronger a priest's relationship with their deity, the more powerful that priest's ceremonies become.

Vows are another way to strengthens ceremonies. Vows define how strong a relationship is between a worshipper and their deity. A vow is a commitment to a deity to either do something or not to do something. For example a vow to kill an enemy, or a vow of poverty. Vows are intended to show the deity how dedicated a follower is. Breaking one will have serious consequences.

Deities

A deity is a godly figure with divine influence. This divine influence allows them to temporarily change the physical laws of the world. Which deities you can follow depends of course on the setting which you play in. Every deity has one or more dominions. A dominion is a subject of importance to a society in which the deity has substantially greater influence then other deities. For example the sea, war, harvest and love could all be a dominion.

Deities may also have their own teachings. Teachings are the laws a deity has set for their followers to live by. The setting should have information available about the teachings of a deity for their players. Also there should be a list of vows that are in accordance to the teachings, and there should be a list of vows that contradict the teachings.

Every deity also has a signature blessing. It requires less worshipping power for a priest to bestow the signature blessing of their deity then other blessings. As a priest you will need to know about what ceremonies performed by your deity look like. You should read up on this before playing a priest.

Draft notes

Some things that might be used for this domain:

• Priests take daily prayers with other characters. Each prayer will give a priest additional power. This only works once every day.
• Priests can service the dying, helping them pass on to the divine. This gives them extra power. this is probably a skill in the fatherly figure tree.
• A priest's power is used before combat to strengthen the troops. Divine powers take too much time to use in combat. For this you need primordial or spirit magic.
• Priests have a relationship with their god. The stronger that relationship the more powerful the priest. Vows, quests and deeds strengthen this relationship. Breaking vows weakens this relationship.
• Priests could be aligned to either the good or the evil side of a god but start out neutral. This is a sliding scale, orthogonal to the height of the overall relationship with this god.
• Devout worshippers might have their own conditions, given to them by priests (for free, this condition is also free during character creation). This gives a bonus to worshipers points created by this worshipper. This condition needs to be maintained with DTP.
• Human (animal?) sacrifices give extra points to the ceremony.
• Priests skills give character lasting bonuses - the bonus begins after some kind of rite or ceremony, and lasts until something happens to the character, such as lose HP / WP, or take a short rest. These are called blessings.
• Priests use their powers through ceremonies.
• The most important contribution priests have in battle is through a blessing.
• A blessing is an enduring bonus (it doesn't end after the first use).
• Every deity has their own type of blessing. The blessing specific for that diety is the 'defaulting' blessing given by that priest
• Priests can give a range of blessings, limited by the amount of worshiping power they gathered, and how strong their bond is with their god.
• Characters can not have more then one blessing.
• Maybe we could also have other domains use blessings. Since they don't stack you prevent characters from having multiple bonuses to keep track of.
• Divine knights could be characters who can give themselves blessings and who might carry multiple blessings (but only one from priests).
• Blessings are passed on by a 'mark', which can be anything from sprinkling water, war paint or eating / drinking something for symbolism.
• If you break vows you will have to do penance. Penance will have points associated with them. If you collect enough points the breaking of the vow will be be forgiven. A higher representative of your diety must choose which form of penance must be completed. This representative cannot be under penance himself at this time. Low level penance probably simply costs DTP, higher level penance might be a special all in itself. Or you die.
• If you break a vow you will never be able to become a saint.

Skils

• Standard vow (don't harm others from the same religion), is needed for the initial devine connenction (mainly so evil priests don't go fucking each other up to steal worshiping points).

Skill: Divine standing

• This power only works if you have at least one vow.
• You can collect divine energy from prayer
• By helping in ceremony, you can contribute your divine energy to it

Guiding fatherly figure:

• Daily skill that gives willpower to other people.
• Can't gain willpower in this way from other priests.
• Can't use twice on the same person per day.

Conditions

Divine mark:

• A being has cursed you with a mark.
• You cannot get any blessings and if somebody tries to give you a blessing you have to state you have this mark.

DM info: This mark can probably be removed in a divine ritual, either because the god forgives you, or you ask an other god to remove the mark. In the case you ask an other god to remove it. You gain the following condition:

Bad relationship with X:

• You have a bad relationship with X.
• You cannot get any blessings from X. If somebody tries to give you a blessing from X you have to state that his deity warns him not to do this.