Tuesday, May 17, 2022

How Religion Works, and Why the Pope Can't Cast True Resurrection

The typical priest is not a “cleric.” They have no class levels and cast no high magic ("adventuring magic," the spells in the D&D 5E player's handbook). Most priests serve a similar role to priests in real life throughout history: as counselors, bureaucrats, healers, historians, and conductors of ceremonies.

PC clerics with class levels are much more akin to prophets, miracle-workers, or even heretics. Crucially, leveled clerics are much better at starting or reviving religions than they are at growing or maintaining them.

In a medium- or high-magic setting, cities or other centers of religious power may have a small number of leveled clerics serving in some capacity. But the arrival of mid- to high-level clerics serving a particular god would simultaneously be an honor and a source of stress for the mundane priests of the religion in question. 

Roleplaying religions are often depicted as being internally harmonious, and on the surface that makes sense in a world where a god's existence is a verifiable fact. But knowing what a particular deity thinks and wants, particularly in the short term, is pretty difficult. 



The PHB's cleric spell list actually models the unknowability of god fairly well. Compare the amount of insight a divine caster can get from Augury (2nd level), Divination (4th level), and Commune and Legend Lore (5th level). Even at a point where the PC is at the upper end of the "heroes of the realm" tier, about to enter the "masters of the realm" tier, (i.e. able to cast 5th-level spells), they are still only able to discern their own deity’s will in vague or obfuscated ways. It is very hard to get a straight answer to “what does god want us to do?” There is no great way to get a clear, unambiguous answer until a cleric learns Plane Shift and can go ask in person.

This means that leveled clerics are actually quite likely to run afoul of their own religion's institutions, which may have different interests and interpretations of divine prerogatives. Even well-meaning priests are going to experience some message drift. A high-level paladin is more Joan of Arc than a member of the Swiss Guard, and sometimes that means that even lawful good boy scout religions (perhaps especially lawful good boy scout religions) will be wracked with inner turmoil.

In these situations, PCs and NPCs probably broadly agree on the tenets of the faith, and the institutional non-leveled priests may privately acknowledge that the leveled clerics have an important calling; but probably one out in the wilderness and dungeons of the world. God didn't give you the ability to Flame Strike so you could sit around the capital conducting first communions and commissioning murals. Even a well-liked adventurer who saved the village/city/world is still a headache for institutional clergy, who can't wait for them to get back out into the world, defeat evil (or good or... neutrality) and maybe martyr themselves while they're at it.

All of this means that with the exception of very high-magic settings, powerful divine magic like Resurrection is neither available as a service nor as a favor for adventurers. There simply aren't stationary casters of high enough level to do it, and if there are such NPCs within the religion, they are likely to be travelers, hermits, or missionaries. Their presence in any one place for too long is almost inherently destabilizing, and the availability of resurrection magic in particular can have all kinds of unintended effects, many of them violent and disruptive.  

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